


While I Still Have Breath to Give

by Jadedphase



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dr. Alison Ellory (OC), Dr. Issac Granger (OC), Drama, Gally is involved in this mess, M/M, Multi, Other, PTSD, Post Movie, Post movie AU, Supportive Minho, also Brenda, but he's really not a horrible guy, mention of medical horror, mention of other characters, mentions of suicide referenced, mentions of trauma, minho and thomas are like brothers, not a 'Newt survived the city' AU, not exact to movie or book timeline, recovery themes, spoilers for the book and movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-03-25 13:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13836129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadedphase/pseuds/Jadedphase
Summary: Three years after the last city burned the world has begun to live once more. Thomas has seen it thrive around him, has held the cure in his hands and given the world all he can. But the ghosts still haunt him and even now, with eyes upon the life they are all building, his thoughts are plagued by a possibility born of a wounded heart.He's always taken wild risks to save those around him, but one last chance to save the person who he cannot allow to fade quietly in the night is all he truly wants.





	1. Chapter 1

The world was new again, the old layers had peeled away, rotted in time and what remained was a smooth surface under ready to shine. There were scars scattered here and there of course, remaking an entire world was no easy task and where dark memories still lingered so too did rough spots; but for all it had suffered life had begun the slow crawl back towards the sunlight. 

Year one had brought them some peace, establishing a home in a remote corner of what remained, new possibilities and always a tiny grain of hope to plant and see it grow. When those new foundations were being lifted upon the determination of the young it was little surprise that their village flourished. Humanity existed in a million forms but the purest was that of those who wanted to survive simply for the sake of doing so, not for want of power or greed, and those shaky first steps had been daunting ones. 

The next year came the changes, the turning of wheels and the reaching outward to see what else might still be thriving in small ways. Thomas watched keen minds pull the most unlikely of means to communicate out of nothing, skilled hands and raw focus cobbled together things he might have never considered himself. The end of that year was the beginning of lines of communications spiraling outwards through wire and wind, strangers in passing and each new voice, every new location; it all made the great big world smaller. They were not alone, they had never been alone; miles and miles of distance might have been between them but there were others still peering into the night and building. It was the year that stirred something in them all, most of all Thomas, and the year he decided to share the secret Teresa had died with in her grasp. 

Long months came and went before the right people had the right information in their hands, before science had recovered enough, the doctors could be found, the means to create what was needed; Thomas watched it all with a tired but satisfied scrutiny. It would be done right that time around, he was determined in that much, to make certain every life lost was one that meant something in the end. And that something would bring a cure, finally, in a world that barely needed one with so many lost; but hope was still a fickle thing and the words written to him in a note he carried with him always would not allow that possibility to be tossed away. 

As the crops stretched to the sun and the waves washed the edges of the village, as new lives began and old ones faded, Thomas saw the moment when that cure was first given, when it first burned away the virus inside a young girl and saved her. His own breath caught in his throat, thinking of how much she reminded him of Teresa with her dark eyes set upon him like a prayer. A child lived that day, pulled back from the brink, and what was left of the world rejoiced. 

But it never felt like enough, because it was never going to undo the past. 

For Thomas it was never going to take away a night in one glowing city, a night where he watched a part of his world turn dark as the ebony pain in once-bright eyes. Hearing the words, the pleas that broke his already wounded heart, feeling the stitches in it as it had only begun to heal unravel before him. For all the people he could not save that was the one that ate him up inside, haunted his dreams and every time he heard laughter through the camp he thought, for a split second, he knew the voice that carried it.  
But the last time he had heard that voice was a weak whimper of his own name, pained and dying, just as he watched the light fade from a gaze that had always looked upon him with trust.  
What tore him apart more was the knowing how much more there had been, how that smile had once urged him out of any dark mood, secrets and moments that he couldn’t claim to have shared with anyone else; Thomas’ heart may as well have been the one to feel the blade that night.  
But he had continued on, not for himself, but for the sake of others who needed him; even as the relentless misery of knowing the person he had needed himself was no longer the sunlight at his side in the day and the shadow stolen away with him in quiet spots in the chilly nights. 

Time dragged with the demons nipping at his heels and tears filling his lonely hours before Thomas made a decision; the world was carrying on without him by then. It no longer needed the symbol he was, the leader they expected of him; they had found new leaders, good ones, and they were no longer desperate for symbols when the world was slowly coming back to life. The infection was melting away, with every person cured came a certainty that humanity would last out just a little longer. By the time only the most densely populated areas still held infection Thomas’ mind was made up, his bag packed, and his sights set on a place that still burned in his nightmares. 

 

“You can’t be serious,” Minho’s voice was a sharp edge in the dance of the firelight where they sat, the two on opposite sides of it with what felt like forever between them with the conversation, “Thomas...what point is there in even going back there? We all saw the city burn.” 

“And we have the cure now, the city burned but we don’t know if it stopped, or what happened after,” he countered with the thin words of a desperate man. 

For a moment the silence ached, felt like old scars popping back open to bleed in the warm summer air. A beautiful summer, in fact, one that had been digging a trail of agony through Thomas to know it was the sort of perfect he had promised his friends and never been able to give many of them. 

“A cure we don’t know works on Cranks, not ones that have been that far gone that long; it’s been years now.” The protests were reasonable but they may as well have fell upon death ears for all the good they were doing, running Minho to frustration. “I know you want it to be different, but this is life now and the past is done.” 

“What if we’re wrong?” On his feet in an instant, the once-leader paced, dark eyes reflecting the flames that half masked his friend. “Cranks don’t just die, they keep going for a long time, and we don’t know what the cure can reverse because we’ve never tried it that long out.”

Minho let the words slip before his sense caught up with him, the instant they spilled over his lips the regret came as well. “It can’t reverse a knife, it’s not going to bring back somebody dead.”

The blood dripped between them in the words, soaking into both even as it poisoned the air they breathed; it may as well have been a physical wound for the sudden pain it caused. And silence once again blanketed the two friends, neither knowing what to say. 

“He went back for you.” 

“I know.” There was guilt so heavy in those eyes that for a moment Thomas felt terrible for putting it there, but the truth was no easy thing to carry. “I know,” Minho whispered again, “Newt spent the last of his life making sure I got out of that place. He didn’t have to do it, and I wish you hadn’t been there with him alone at the end, but it was still the end.” 

“They survive a lot, more than a normal person could.” There was iron in Thomas’ voice and his friend saw it again, saw the mirror of the boy who had once stood strong for them, against whatever odds were stacked, unwilling to accept anything but the truth that would lead them home. For an instant, Minho felt that old charge in his bones, the sheer strength of Thomas’ words, and he almost believed them. 

Almost. 

“He’s haunting me, he’s never stopped haunting me. If there’s a way I can make it right I have to.”

As gentle as the plea was it wasn’t one for help, it was one asking a dear friend to just let him go, to have the faith to accept that he had to do it even if it meant not coming back. “You don’t need me as much here anymore, you’re all good and things are better. But the one thing that I can’t shut my eyes without feeling is how bad it hurts to have walked away.” 

“You’re not going back for Teresa.” Minho prodded the ashes with a stick to stir them, it wasn’t an accusation but an affirmation of things he had known nearly as long as he had known Thomas. “This isn’t just about a friend we all lost.” 

“It’s Newt.” Thomas’ reasoning was sound; of any of them perhaps the blonde had held together their lives with something close to unwavering faith and he was owed that in return. Even if he was gone, well, Thomas had to be certain and finally, years between, he knew it was time to take that journey. If it was hell waiting for him then so be it; the ghosts were growing too strong for him to fight.  
  
And his heart had grown so heavy. 

“It’s more than that.” 

Soft, the nudge, and Thomas nodded, not having to speak what was being asked, not needing to confirm something that had torn through him in the time lost. 

“I cared a lot about Teresa,” he offered with a sigh, knowing that anything less would be a betrayal of her memory, “But if there's any way he’s still in the world I have to find him, and if I can save him I’m going to.” 

“And if you can’t you have to accept that he’s gone, you don’t have a choice.” The other man shook his head, knowing there would be no arguments while the heart was involved. “We’ll just have to see where this ends.” 

“I’m not asking you to go back to that with me,” he would have never asked anyone to do so, “I know it’s probably a one-way trip.” 

Minho laughed, strained in the sound as he gave the fire another jab. “You’re a brother to me, and you barely survived losing him the first time; you’re crazy if you think I’ll let you try it again alone. Besides, if Newt is..anything we can bring back; I owe’em.” 

Thomas opened his mouth to protest but saw the glint in the smirk and it had been a while since he’d seen it, knew that expression as one that had changed the world at his side. If luck held out maybe they’d get one last chance at changing it, if only for one person. 

“We’re not leaving until morning though, I’m at least getting a good night’s sleep before I have to go back chasing monsters so you can appease your lovesick heart and get us both killed doing it.” 

Even though it was said with a laugh Thomas had to agree; the morning was going to come soon enough as it was and the past was not going to be drug out of the grave easily. The sunrise would be kind, he hoped, but even more he hoped the truth would be far kinder; the boy he had left in the dust of a burning city might have been gone from his reach forever but if anything short of moving hell would bring him back Thomas was willing to fight that one last battle before he could rest.


	2. Chapter 2

“Have you even figured out how you’re going to do this?” The question bounced through the rough air, almost as much as the aircraft as it rode the thermals towards the city that was no more.

What Thomas had expected to be a solitary trek into that old nightmare had expanded in the few short hours between nightfall and sunrise; words traveled like wildfire through the camp. The aircraft had been a necessity, there was simply no other way to cross all the distance, and Brenda had insisted she go along because, as she had said herself, she had already stuck out so much with their little group that she wasn’t going to miss a rescue mission. The unwavering resolve in her words had left Thomas defenseless to argue, only able to agree with a weary smile. Minho had remained perched at the front of the craft and if there was anyone Thomas knew he could trust his back to in whatever they were to walk into it would be him; he might not have made the journey alone but with Minho he stood a chance at making it back.

Gally rounded out the group in about the most unlikely way possible, but since those days of the city the other man had made himself a bodyguard of sorts for the entire camp and specifically for Thomas, always shrugging it off as just paying back the debit he owed in those early mistakes.

Thomas considered those debits paid but he wouldn’t forsake the willpower behind Gally, even if he had questioned it’s direction in the past; time had shown him the worth of friendship between them. The shaky edges had straightened out and there were times Thomas knew he had underestimated the other man.

It might end up being sheer stubborn will that kept Gally at their side but he’d take it, none the less.

“We can’t just stand in the middle of a Crank-infested city and do this, and even if he is alive somehow he’s not going to be long after the crazy that fuels them burns out with the virus,” Gally’s logic was painfully to the point and true, “It’s going to be worse getting there and finding him and having him die on the way back.”

“We’re not going to give him the cure there; even if there are labs still left after the burn none of us know enough about medicine to keep him alive. We’re going to have to catch him and bring him back the way he is.”

The plan felt like anything but a steady one but it was all Thomas could string together; Newt had been so near to death if he was still alive that the virus was likely the only thing that could be keeping him on his feet.  
The irony was a bitter one, it left a sour taste in Thomas’ mouth.

“You want to bring a full out Crank back to the camp? You think anybody is going to even let you do that?” Gally retorted at the absurdity of the idea. “The fact that you think you can catch one and keep him out on the way back is insane already, but people aren’t going to like you bringing him back.”

 

“We’re not going to take him back there directly, there’s going to be a smaller spot outside the main camp waiting for us with medical; hopefully it’ll be enough.”

The words trailed away into the open air and silence fell over the small group, each mulling over the plan in their own ways. They still followed him though, come hell or high water they, somehow, still trusted him to lead them.  
And there he was, leading them into madness.

Minho’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder and Thomas’ head snapped up towards him, no words exchanged as the other man sank into the seat next to him to ride out the rough air.

“I don’t remember getting airsick like this before,” he admitted; it was almost comical to see Minho turn such a thin shade of pale.

“You weren’t as old then,” Thomas shot back, “It’s been three years after all.”

Three years were not so long but those years spent in far more ease than they had known had seen them all lose some of the sharp corners in favor of comfort, had pushed them past the edges of those last few teenage years into the cusp of adulthood. It was only then that Thomas took a moment to look around and see his friends as they were, without the dirt of the past few years; he had always seen them as just the same as always but they carried a depth in their eyes, a weight upon them, that shown so clearly in that moment.

And there were long years ahead, years that were finally possible.

What lay behind was a reel in his thoughts, turning over and over the images, the sights and sounds on that loop.

“ _Gonna hit the ground if you do it that way, Greenie.” The blonde had been watching Thomas for the past half hour during his trekking to the stream and back, dragging with him the thin fabric of the makeshift hammock that passed for a bed.  
When he had asked Thomas had muttered something about not being able to sleep because it was so dusty and Newt had laughed at the notion of even caring about such things._

_It was restless work, they both knew it, more than anything._

_The problem came in attempting to put he hammock back into place and Thomas not knowing enough to really know how to tie the lines back correctly.  
Far be it for him to stifle the creative process, Newt had mused while viewing the struggle before him. He offered pointers that the other boy purposely ignored, still so fresh to the Glade that he would not allow the place to get the better of him._

_Newt had to bite back an amused sound when the whole lot of it crashed to the ground; stubborn boy and damp fabric altogether in a lump of indignant misery. Alby had chided him for laughing, told him to show Thomas how to secure it properly, and left the two of them to the task.  
It wasn’t that Newt hadn’t already planned to do exactly that; it was just a bit of fun watching the moment unfold._

“ _Now you know why we don’t worry over a little dust,” the blonde had pointed out while giving the lines another hard jerk to secure them back around the tree, “Gets to being a pain fixing them already without doing it more often.”_

“ _Yeah,” Thomas had admitted defeat with a set to his jaw that made Newt smile; the first real smile that had greeted him since he’d arrived there._

The memory spun a thick web and Thomas’ eyes returned to focus on the world around him with the lump in his throat growing; Newt had been right then but never unkind. It had been months later, past the days when those trees had been only a recollection and the Glade far behind them, that Thomas had found himself always sinking down to rest closer to Newt than the others while they had lain unwitting captives those first few nights with WCKD.

  
_It had never been an invitation, exactly, only a tiny shift to the side just enough to clear a space for him_ _in the bunk, nearly expected given the way they had all taken to sleeping close enough to be aware of each other.  
The others had settled into the shift easier, finding their own space had been something new. A calculated move, perhaps, to put some distance between them with that breathing room that felt so different that there had been an appeal to it just the same as the feel of an actual bed under them held a forgotten comfort._

_Thomas had found himself oddly lost over it, half wondering why as he had tossed restlessly in his bunk amid the heavy breathing of his sleeping friends. He wasn’t certain why he couldn’t find the ease they did, the sleep that evaded him, and had taken to pacing._

_Newt and Minho were the only ones who were such light sleepers that they noticed him, the later grumbling over the intrusions on his dreams before he thrust a shoulder towards the room and rolled over, but Newt had only chuckled and shrugged it off._

“ _Need t’sleep, Tommy, both of us,” that hazy tone was one that Thomas would never forget in the days to come, how unburdened Newt sounded when he was tired, “Just watch the elbows.”_

And it had been decided, as simple as that, that small space became a shared one and Thomas’ eyes had finally dropped shut, lulled into sleep by the steady sound of Newt’s breathing droning out all his own frustrations over not being sure what might happen next.

It was a gift then, and one that lasted out all those nights in their desperate escape; even amid the sand and stars above the firelight always found Thomas bedding down next to the blonde.

The others hadn’t really asked why, it hadn’t seemed to matter, but at the memory Thomas knew the importance of it when he hadn’t back then; those first few nights Newt had granted him a safe place to shut his eyes.  
It was little wonder that even now Thomas rarely slept easily; there was something, someone, missing.

Those eyes slid back to the window of the aircraft, watching the miles speed away below them; miles and miles to go before he could sleep.  
When the skeleton of the city appeared on the horizon Thomas let free a breath he hadn’t know he was holding in the depths of his chest; somewhere inside those broken streets whatever was left of Newt was waiting. Be it stumbling upon two legs or only bones left to the ashes, only miles remained between Thomas and the truth.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a horrible sight spread out before him; long ago the smoke had cleared away and the flames had died down but what was left behind could only be described as a graveyard. Buildings half-gutted and mostly metal skeletons reached skyward with twisted fingers, the thick ash had claimed most everything in the streets and coated it with a suffocating dust broken up only by the glint of shards of broken glass and rusted metal. Somewhere in all the destruction lay bodies, Thomas had no doubt as he surveyed the city from atop a section of the now-crumbling wall where the airship had landed, somewhere below the ground was littered with wasted bones and lives cut short.

And deeper inside the ravaged streets what still moved rarely ventured into the light of day; the virus still lived in that ruined place.

But so did something else, as his eyes trailed Thomas took note of the sprouting greenery that pushed between crippled cars and toppled roofs; fed upon the dead and all the stronger for it as those blades and branches sought of the sun above with the resolve that only nature could have to reclaim what men had set ablaze.  
It would have been beautiful if his heart wasn’t elsewhere, his mind too busy to appreciate it; as it was everything was only a blur of gray in the background as he picked his way along the chunks of stone that the walls had become in the years of neglect.

“It’s near here, I remember.” Thomas had muttered while he’d wandered, Minho’s eyes cast upon him the entire time as he watched in the silence of knowing there was no comfort he could offer other than to be there. It was an ugly place, a wounded, bloody place still; it had been the end and the beginning for them all.  
And perhaps only the end for a few, the other man reflected as he chanced a glance in the direction of where the towers had fallen and taken Teresa away into the billowing fires.

Even Gally was oddly somber rather than his usual tense-set jaw and flat gaze; whatever memories the place held for him had never been discussed but just to watch him Minho knew there was the pain in returning. It was a fresh wound for them each again after the peace they had been enjoying; seeing the war throw out in burnt realization in front of their faces all over again.

It was going to be a long search ahead and already the day felt exhausting.

 

The air was thick, Thomas felt a sting in his lungs as he crept through the old streets, already they had spotted several slow-rambling Cranks circling without direction. So often the ones they had seen were newly turned, but time had left the creatures sluggish and stiff from lack of energy, lack of prey, and they were all hopeful that was one advantage on their side as the wreckage above cut heavy lines across the daylight.

Night’s approach felt like a death sentence, it could only be that one day and Thomas knew time was slipping away even as they raced along the twisted remains of the city. But there was one spot he had to go, had to know for certain; if Newt had never left the ground again his body would be waiting for them.

It wasn’t as difficult to find as Gally had claimed it would be, it felt like only yesterday they had fled, that Thomas had walked away with steps like lead while the others had stared in horror at what Newt had become, where he lay upon the cold ground. They had left him to the fire, to the smokey air and the lonely streets; if he was somehow alive Thomas was not going to forgive himself easily for waiting so long to return.

Every step felt like the past reaching thin fingers to drag him down, every breath was a haunted one in his sore lungs.

And then, so unassuming and seemingly unimportant, there it was; the spot where he had lain Newt down in the dust for the last time. The moment he saw it Thomas dashed forward, eyes upon the ground, pushing aside the overgrowth with his boot, desperate to see the bones and more desperate not to. He couldn’t catch his breath, not when that moment meant so much, would change things for him no matter how the cards fell.

It was empty.

There was no body, no knife buried among them; there was nothing to be found but crushed leaves and weak plants that were kicked away with ease. Newt wasn’t there and right then Thomas felt as though he was standing inside a dream, or a nightmare, because the possibility he had been seeking was real and with it came the burdens of knowing so much.

Years, he had left Newt in that place, suffering his personal hell of being lost to the madness, for years.

And all that kept running through Thomas’ head were those last pleas to not let the Flare have him, to not allow his humanity to rot inside an empty, vicious shell.  
He had done exactly that, had failed Newt; and now he was there to try to save whatever was left of him.

“He’s not here?” Minho’s voice cut through the fog, it sounded so distant and so very, very weary. “You really think he’s been...one of those things for this long? I didn’t think it was possible.”

Guilt, that was the word for the emotion that rang in the words; Newt had never given up on anyone and they hadn’t been strong enough to have faith for him.

“Doesn’t matter much if we don’t know where he is, and this city is huge.” Gally picked his way past the two of them, poking at the ground with the edge of his rifle. “Any brilliant ideas where to start? Not exactly like we can just walk around calling his name.”  
And time was suddenly even more of an enemy; Brenda could only wait until dusk before they had to take off. It was already a risk to linger at the wall when it was falling into decay; there wouldn’t be a second chance.

“If I have to I will, I’ll search every street.” Thomas cut into the conversation tensely, eyes upon the other two and giving them silent permission to turn back if they wanted; now that he knew it was possible he was not going to stop. It was dangerous, a fool's gamble, too much to ask, but he didn’t have a chance to; between Minho’s shake of his head as he started to fan out and Gally’s annoyed mumbling it was clear they didn’t intend to leave him to it alone.

“I wouldn’t do that, these things are bound to be really hungry.” Gally had already begun to unpack the bag at his shoulder, the thin steel cable they had no way of knowing would be enough, but everything about that day had already hinged on hope more than logic.

There was nothing to do but search, race the sun and try to win.

 

Hours, how many exactly was difficult to guess at, and Thomas felt as though he were walking in a daze as they moved from one street to the next. Every looming shadow could have been Newt, drawing closer to each one was foolhardy itself but time and again the face was not the one he was searching for. Three people stood little chance, Thomas knew then it might have taken dozens just to put a dent in the search, but three was all he had, all Newt had.  
Three years with Newt, three years without him, three friends on the hunt for one lost; the numbers felt like a blur inside his skull.

“Thomas,” Minho’s voice jolted him out of the daze before he wandered too close to a cluster of Cranks milling around an alleyway, stopped him just short of walking into them. The sun was unforgiving, his lips were dry and his mind was wandering; he had come so very close to stepping right into his own grave.  
But what would he do if they never found Newt? Would it be any different? He wouldn’t leave, even if he hadn’t spoken it out loud yet Thomas knew that; the others could return home and continue to live in that new world but he would remain right there until he had reclaimed what the past had tried to steal.

“Sorry,” he mumbled with another slow step away from the group, none of them were Newt, “Heat’s starting to make me lose it a little.”

“We have to go soon.” It was a gentle reminder, not one Minho wanted to give him but one he had to offer. An offer that Thomas said nothing in return to; he had done the impossible before, they all had, why wouldn’t the world give him one more chance at it when it mattered the most?

Something in his thoughts kept turning the past and with a lift of his eyes Thomas realized why; the shadow that engulfed them was the splintered spiral, the spot where he had been given his life back and Teresa had traded her own for it. Even with time having pulled more of the building to the ground and scattered it there was no erasing it from Thomas’ mind.  
He knew she lay there in the wreckage, only dust but not forgotten; she wouldn’t have survived. If she had somehow they would have known in the weeks that followed when stray souls that had felt the city had been seen, later when they had been able to reach out to other settlements there would have been word of her having made it out.  
But there had never been a word, no matter how long Thomas had listened and asked for it.

It seemed that day was going to end with him burying two ghosts.

 

Ghosts didn’t hiss though, they didn’t growl and stalk, and it was only in that moment when their trio had gone still that Thomas heard it. Soft, the sound, as though strained through a filter, weakened by the years; a low whining snarl that hit a pitch to make his blood run cold.

Enough to make Minho turn swiftly to stare at the shadows around them and Gally to grip his weapon more tightly; that terrifying moment that Thomas realized what he couldn’t bring himself to voice because the implications leave his stomach tightened in horror.

“I’m not the only one that heard that, right? It sounded closer than the others,” Gally’s teeth clenched and even as he raised the weapon Thomas called out for him to stop, only earning a glare.

“I’m _sorry_ ; I thought we were trying not to die today. I didn’t sign on for that one, I followed you here to save you from your own stupidity but I plan on everybody going back breathing,” he snapped with that look and for an instant, the old tension was between them; Thomas standing stiff and Gally unwavering in his stance. “We’re _done_ Thomas, you’re going to get us killed.”

__

“Guys,” Minho interrupted the angry staring contest, eyes trained on the flicker of motion in the shadows, “I’m really waiting for one of you to tell me the Flare doesn’t get smarter, just...for my own sanity at this point.”

__


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter has descriptions of blood and wounds.

A step back, then another, Minho was often the first to charge into a battle but this was somehing strange; the tense words from the other men was enough to draw attention and that was hardly surprising but what made Minho feel every hair on the back of his neck stand up was what _wasn’t_ happening.  
The small cluster he could see outlined in the shadows, so many stages of nearly destroyed bodies infected with the inky mire that filled their veins, the spread of green-black that curled out from their skin, were just as motionless. And he had never known a Crank not to attack at the first sight or sense of a normal person.

Staring several of them down, seeing the reflection of the void in their expressions; Minho hadn’t felt that sort of fear since the endless testing he had endured under WCKD’s control the last time he had been trapped in that city. It was no test though, there was no blinking and hoping to wake up screaming as the visions inside his skull faded away; there was only that dead silence.

“ _Shuck_ ,” Minho muttered with a drop of his hand to the side to pull his own weapon free, he couldn’t afford to take his gaze off those hollow eyes but they were going to root into his nightmares for a long time to come.  
How long that standstill would hold out he wasn’t certain, but it had gone unnoticed by Thomas and Gally and the hiss to gain their attention had fallen on deaf ears. He may as well have been alone at that moment, cornered into that tiny bubble of skewed existence where the very monsters that snapped and snarled had become something even worse.

They were watching the three of them, might have been since they’d first arrived, and waiting for some cue that Minho didn’t know. He could see the hunger though, sharp as razors in their toothy grimaces, waiting on a thread to snap.

“We have to go,” he tried again, unwilling to pull his sights away for uncertainty that it might somehow start a chain reaction, “ _Thomas_ , we have to go.”

Something in his voice finally stirred the other man, frustration over the words already ready to pass his lips but sucked back in at the second he saw where his friend’s focus centered, unblinking. Even averting his attention felt like a shaky idea, but Gally had already raised his rifle and trained it on one of the creatures near the front of that pack.

The few inches over to Minho felt like miles to cross and Thomas did so with gingerly steps, Gally following with all the tense slink of a prowling animal himself before they had grouped back closer. Safety, perhaps, or it may have made them an easier target; the rules had suddenly changed and none of them were prepared for it.

“There’s something wrong here.” It didn’t need to be said but Minho couldn’t help but voice it, to make it real, to reaffirm for himself that what was unfolding truly was and not some fever dream like the ones that occasionally still tortured him. The other two said nothing, even as Gally made the motion to edge away from the ghastly onlookers.

It was a mistake, with the motion came a low whine like metal unhinging and a flurry of motion in pale hues tainted ebony; the Cranks were swifter than any of them remembered and the only choice was to scatter out of reach of those hungry claws. A stumble might have meant a short end but thankfully the rubble wasn’t so unkind, and even a bit out of practice they all still knew what it was to bolt for their lives.

Somewhere distantly Thomas heard sounds, hard to pin down more than the angry tone of the words Gally hurled at the monsters between cracks of that rifle but it still sent chills up his spine. Barly time to glance over his shoulder to see Gally lay one to waste, another recoiling from the blast rather than charging headlong into it, for his first questions to be confirmed; there was only a bare animal reflex to them but even that had not been present before. They were faster, and somehow, as much as he could not fathom how, they were not only blindly lunging, empty-minded monsters.

Not nearly smart though and that was a small favor, Minho discovered quickly with a rough scale along the edge of a broken shop front, two of the creatures all but bounced off the brick in their haste to grab for him and even as their fingertips left oily marks along the metal he clambered across they didn’t have the sense to pull themselves up. The crack and snap of bones rang across the street as his boots ruined those grasping hands in his climb higher, the uneven sway of twisted metal nearly enough to make him hesitate before he had to cross the gap in his escape with a jump that left him sliding down the opposite side of the rusted wall, just enough to catch his breath to keep going.

Splitting up turned out to be a dismal idea and try as he might Thomas couldn’t keep track of the other two beyond the glimpses he caught amid the wreckage. It was just like the Maze all over again; never knowing which direction would change suddenly and if the next open spot would be exactly the one something lurched from. It flooded back to Thomas, survival instincts he hadn’t needed for years pouring into his mind as he tried to call out to his friends. “Get higher; we can’t see enough down here not to run right into one of them!”

His own advice led him up the side of a makeshift ramp of an old building sign that buckled under the weight of the Cranks at his heels, just enough time to cover the space and make it to the next spot in the rubble. Relief came in a wave as he heard the rifle roar once again and spotted Gally, still cursing under his breath, haul up to the upper levels of the toppled stone and steel, his figure cutting a furious shape in the failing light and the rifle downing another of the creatures below.

“Where’s Minho?” Instantly Thomas’ eyes made a wide circle of the space, nearly jumping when a solid form knocked into him lightly and the other man stood breathing hard to answer the question.

“Still alive,” Minho muttered, not at all liking the handful of Cranks making a circle of their perch, “They can’t get up here, I swear they look like they know it.” The possibility was something right out of a nightmare though so he tried to shake it off.

Thomas’ thoughts had been centered on the same idea but voicing it felt like something he wouldn’t be able to take back, wouldn’t be able to stomach.

“So we’ll knock part of the wall over on them,” Gally broke in, directly to the point and in no mood to debate the mental state of creatures currently out for his blood. Given the way the wind was making the unsteady pile of rubble sway it was far from a difficult idea to accomplish, but neither of the other two men moved.

“I didn’t know,” Thomas started before he was cut off by a motion from Minho that left the words dying on his lips. Of course, he hadn’t known, how could anybody have known that they wouldn’t be walking into something nearly impossible.

“Just want to get out of here,” Minho pointed out as he tested the edge of the wall with a push of his boot, “Gally’s right; we knock this on the ones down there and make a run for it and we should still be able to get out of here.”

It wasn’t right, more than anything Thomas was ready to point out that what they had seen was just more proof that there was reason to look for Newt but he could see the exhaustion in the other men, see the way they were looking to him for that confirmation so he gave it to them. “We can make it.”

And just like that, he felt as though he had given something up but had little choice. So often it had been exactly that; sacrifice something for the sake of everyone else.  
He’d already had to sacrifice Newt once; knowing he probably did it all over again settled like decay inside him.

The creak of metal brought him back to his senses, as did the yell from Gally to help them; a few cautious steps along the edge brought him them and the chunk of wall that was crumbling. Minho already had a shoulder shoved to the rough surface, the slow rocking as the debris was nudged out of place was a sound that left Thomas with a chill of his spine; it sounded like an animal dying.

His hands had only just found a spot against the mass when Gally gave the signal and the shoved at the cracked surface as one; that low sound became a scream of metal as it tipped, broke apart and went tumbling sharply the few feet below.

A step too close and Thomas felt his own feet slide with it, only the sudden jerk of motion backward as he glanced to see the back of his jacket tangled firmly in Minho’s fingers kept him from ending up in that avalanche.

He offered a weak nod of thanks and peered over the edge at the ground, the scattered rubble and the hints of bodies broken under it, pulling his eyes away with the sick feeling that bubbled up in the pit of his stomach.

“We gotta get back to the wall, _now._ ”

The words came from someone, Thomas didn't realize it was his own voice that had betrayed him, assumed Minho since he was being pulled back to his feet by that grip when they sounded and it was something of a daze as he reached for his dropped weapon to find it lost to the crash below. Too late to worry about it, they had to cut a swift path back across the highest ground they could before dark or something worse caught up to them.

Gally was steps ahead, Thomas wasn’t going to argue that since he had enough of his wits about him to pick his way through the tangled path; he wasn’t so certain he could get out of his own head enough to lead the way himself. As quick as they darted through the streets everything around them felt like a fog, one foot in front of the other and tense eyes drifting only enough to stay on guard.

There were flickers of other Cranks, he knew the others saw them too but the creatures didn’t take enough notice to follow; it felt like luck on their side for once even when the occasional one would take a few jolted steps towards them before apparently giving up the chase.

_None_ of it made sense, none of it was what the world was supposed to be.

 

Thomas stumbled though, just for a second, when he caught sight out of the corner of his eye of one of the Cranks that took notice of them. A shadow in the fading daylight, it moved as swift as the rest if not for something very distinct; it had a _limp_.

And just as suddenly Thomas couldn’t move, staring at the monster with black, oily eyes and the splatter of infection crept over flesh. It was skin pulled tight over bone and years of what should have been starvation to leave a ruined body to rot rather than that mocking preservation; so ugly with stained teeth drawn over split lips, so empty beyond that terrifying animal intellect set upon him. He hadn't realized at first; hair matted gray with ash and dust, clothes filthy and barely recognizable, but once look closer and the feel of his stomach twisting into a knot was enough to be sure.

  
When he realized that Thomas had slowed Minho was the first with the misfortune of glimpsing what used to be someone they had called a brother; impossibly fragile looking and deadly in the same ragged, vile breath.

  
Motionless again, some part of him was hopeful that if he didn’t move, neither would the creature that had once been Newt; if he stayed still he wouldn’t have to fight and destroy what was left in front of him.  
No such luck though, the lunge was faster than seemed possible and left him only enough time to scramble back and shove a boot against whatever solid mass it came into contact with. The dull thud of flesh and bone hitting the ground made his insides coil in sickness but self-preservation took over.

“Newt!” He cried out, as though hopeful somehow his voice could break the infection buried inside Newt’s brain, barely in time to move out of range once more before he resorted what had worked before and went upward. Minho was certain he was about to watch someone die when Thomas made it so far as the ragged edge of a broken panel of window, eyes a swirl of terror when those claws caught at his boots and jerked him back along the cracked surface, certain he was about to witness him being torn to shreds by something they had once fought alongside just because he wasn’t going to be fast enough to clear the distance between them and get to Thomas in time.

Surprisingly, it was Gally that shifted the odds with a sudden, rough smash of the butt of the rifle against Newt’s grime-soaked temple bare seconds before those claws dug into Thomas.

Cranks never went down easy, and this newer version was no exception; barely a moment of pause before the world had become chaos and Thomas couldn’t convince a single muscle in his body to move. It was so wildly outside what he was used to, the rapid reactions his body never held back, but it was almost as though he were watching the scene from the outside.  
The yelling, the creature that used to be Newt relentless as it came for him again and Gally’s voice cutting through it all with a snarl of his own. The glass splintered under him as he made a bid to recoil and for one agonizing instant his mind shot back to another time in that city, another chase, and glass bending as Brenda watched him with a grim expression as she expected to die.

He didn’t need the past coming back for him right then, pulling his mind into those flashbacks and out of the moment, so Thomas fought the memory down and felt the crackling edges of the glass dig into his palms as he tried to move higher before it collapsed under the weight of himself and Newt.

His hands caught on the corner of the steel housing for the large window as it buckled and rained down in a flurry of busted glass, a hiss escaping at the sudden lance of pain as shards dug into his flesh with the desperate grip.

The fall wasn’t very far, but far enough to have broken bones perhaps, and all Thomas could do was cling to the edge with eyes narrowed in determination. He heard the snarling still and chanced a glance towards the tangle of metal and ripped earth below him; it felt like a miracle at first that the fall hadn’t destroyed Newt but watching him struggle in the tangle of wires that had caught him was more like watching a rabid animal.

Things went blurry at the edges with a wave of exhaustion and when he blinked Thomas saw the scene unfold, a thin body still jerking and snarling and a rifle pointed, and with all the foolish determination he could muster he protested before the shot could sound, “No!”

“That’s it, he’s jacked; we should have known it already.” Gally spat the words and shoved his boot down more firmly to the solid ground at the edge of the pit while Thomas fixed him with a hellfire-rough gaze.

“You’re not going to kill him, we found him, that’s what we were here for.” The words hit a strained tone even as he tried to pull himself back up over the edge and had to reach for both their hands to drag free, unable to look back over his shoulder knowing what lay there.  
It wasn’t Newt, not even the version he had eased to the ground in supposed death, no; the years had made the visage so much worse and those eyes were haunting instead of the warm brown that had held Thomas’ gaze in the past. But it had to be Newt, it had to be the Flare, what it did when given time and the chance, and it was still only a virus.

The cure _had_ to work; he wouldn’t accept any other possibility.

“He just tried to rip your face off, what part of Newt do you think could still be in there? It’s rotted his brain out, he’s a corpse.” Gally’s fingers still rested on the trigger, itched to pull it, but something tightened in his chest at the way Thomas managed to get back to his unsteady feet.

“Get the cable,” Thomas instructed, ignoring the looks he got for the words, feeling as though they must have thought him out of his mind at that point but they would listen, he could count on them.

 

There had been nothing easy about wrangling the shrieking monster wearing Newt’s skin, and through it all Thomas only felt that sense of dread more deeply. He didn’t want to believe it at first but the proof was there in the broken handle of a knife that protruded from that narrow chest like a thorn, the sickly vines of the Flare wove tight around it, every little motion that threatened to knock it free made him shudder and every growl sent his stomach tense.  
His thoughts kept turning over Newt’s words, the way he had confessed to being terrified of becoming some soulless creature, some snapping demon with empty eyes that would kill even those he had once protected. Thomas had allowed it to happen, perhaps not on purpose, but it had happened anyway.

Even with Newt safely subdued in the space between himself and Minho while Brenda flew them back towards home it all felt surreal. He would have accepted no less than the end he was after but once he’d gotten it there was so little there that Thomas had thought it might be.

“I can’t believe you found him,” she had been quick to approach when they had arrived back, half dragging Newt just to avoid his nails and teeth. Her eyes had gone wide and then tipped in sorrow as she watched, tense while they had moved him inside. “It’s so bad, I’ve never seen it like that.”  
Somewhere inside she knew what it was like to wonder though when the next breath might be the last, when the cure had already destroyed the Flare but was only waiting to feel it choke her life away from simply not knowing otherwise. Towards the end, it had been difficult for her to even look at him and that mirror without feeling those carefully obscured anxieties rise.  
Brenda had felt such a distinct twinge of pain when they had arrived too late to save Newt, knowing far too much, and seeing him then only sent her thoughts into a spiral of what might have been her own fate.

But none of them had expected what had been brought back.

   
Something was clearly wrong, _different_ , Minho had argued it with a set tone that Newt had to have been following them while they had searched for him but there was no logic to it; Cranks didn’t follow logic or reasoning.  
Some old memory might have driven the impulse, but if that were the case what memory had been enough to urge Newt to track them, waiting out the others’ attack; the amount of awareness that involved was nothing easy to swallow.  
Was it some lingering hatred for Thomas allowing him to fall into that darkness that still burned inside him?

“Even if I’m not going to get the Flare he’s still answering to me for this,” Gally mumbled from his seat next to Brenda and wrapped his hand to cover the ragged place where he had suffered the only injury from retrieving Newt from the pit; the bite mark across his hand was deep and painful as the bandages soaked the blood from the torn flesh.

Thomas was tempted to argue that Newt would have never done something to hurt any of them in his right mind but it seemed needless to say; nothing was right at that point. He couldn’t even guess at what or how Newt was still moving, but he couldn’t forsake it either.

Those dead eyes told him no secrets and the restless, constant shifting was too much like watching an animal trying to break free from bondage; Thomas could feel his heart in the pit of his stomach. But he wouldn’t let it go so far as to thinking maybe he still owed Newt some peace, maybe ending it would have been better. There was a cure waiting and they had risked a lot in getting through that day.

And if it didn’t work then there would be no other choice; he couldn’t watch everything good in the blonde so far gone under the Flare eating him up inside.

“You know if this works it’s going to change things again.” Minho mentioned while his thoughts remained on the tense form restrained at their feet, “It’s going to mean we could have brought people back before.”

If that cure had come earlier, if Thomas’ blood had been discovered before it had, if they had even considered those chances in the years past. 

Why so much of the new world had to be built upon the graves of the old one had never made sense to Thomas, but neither did the things he had witnessed that day. In some tiny way he almost missed the simplicity of the Glade, even the Maze; back when the fear had been unfocused and they were all struggling together.

Those struggles were long over, or should have been; watching Newt made everyone in that small space wonder what sort of impossibilities were only waiting to be found in the aftermath of the world they had thought they finally understood in the short span of only days before.


	5. Chapter 5

 

“ _How can it be so bloody hot during the day and so cold at night,” Newt’s voice trailed behind him as he paced the edges of their small campsite under some guise of keeping guard, but Thomas knew it was more than that. He’d seen the way Newt’s eyes drifted time and again to the form on the sand pulling in unsteady breaths while the rest of their tired little band sleep in exhausted waves. All through the day he had caught Newt watching Winston, a strange glimmer in his eyes that seemed out of place with the blonde._

_And in the chill of the night it had transformed in restless circling, a slow drag that left Thomas feeling out of place in his own body with the surreal feeling that had blanketed the campfire._

_Hope felt glossy and glittered in the sunlight but in the cold night the shine had worn off on even the most optimistic of the group._

_When Newt crashed into the spot next to him, a tangle of long limbs folding inward, angles disjointed and sharper than usual, Thomas offered him a silent glance of sympathy. But spending sympathy felt weak; it was Winston who should have been getting the largest share of it; Thomas felt a little guilty offering it up to someone else when he could hear the struggle for air as it rattled in Winston’s lungs._

 

“ _We have to get somewhere soon, anywhere,” Newt declared, even then refusing to entirely give up on the idea that somehow they would manage the impossible. “So long as it’s not back there.”_

_That wouldn’t save Winston, it would only damn them all._

_Thomas couldn’t find the words to urge the haunted look out of Newt’s eyes, couldn’t dredge up enough himself to stir up some energy; he was left just nodding once more and watching in the flicker of the firelight while the other male tugged at a stray string that had come undone from a tore spot in the knee of those weather-worn pants._

_Ever since Thomas had first opened his eyes in that box, what felt like a lifetime past, he had not felt so distant and lost inside his own head. Newt looked to be doing no better as the seconds melted into moments and the greedy fire crackled._

“ _S’gonna be okay Tommy.”_

_Maybe the words were true, it would have been a stretch to say they were easy to believe, but hearing them bridged the gap Thomas couldn’t at the time._

“ _Nothing feels okay,” he confessed, as much of a traitor as the words left him feeling they had been nipping at the inside of Thomas’ mind since the long trek had begun. He has been the one to rally his friends, the one to push them out the door and take the chance and now they were all holding up by a thread and some of them couldn’t even claim that much. But he still felt like it was the right thing, that he had to save them, that it was the only chance._

“ _Happens when things change,” Newt countered as best he could but the words tasted bitter in his mouth, “I told you before that in the Glade things were in order, and order kept us alive.”_

_The words cut a furrow through him and Thomas’ eyes squeezed shut for an instant at the painful feeling that clawed under his skin with them, a heavy truth._

“ _But,” the physical nudge of Newt’s shoulder against his own jarred him out of his thoughts as he realized his friend wasn’t done speaking, “I can’t say for how long, and you can’t say either. We were already dead there before we knew it, it’s all chance out here but better than waiting for them to come collect us out of the Glade and ship us off to the lab; at least we got there together. We don’t know if they would have split us all up otherwise, and there wouldn’t have been any getting out that way.”_

_Thomas drew a slow breath at the words, knowing there was some wisdom in them but the raw feelings still ran too thick and too sharp to let much logic past his walls. He only glanced back to Newt to see him offering a tired smile in return; that smile had felt like a rope thrown into the sea to haul him out more and more often the last few days._

“ _If I’m wrong-”_

“ _Don’t be.”_

_Newt chuckled, how the conviction still lingered in his voice even then when his eyes were muddy with exhaustion and a hint of fear Thomas couldn’t imagine but he couldn’t help but respect just how strong it was, and be grateful._

_He didn’t say thank you, exactly, he just leaned into that shoulder as he stared into the flames and settled in that tired slump where they were both too restless to sleep and too worn down to pull themselves together._

_It warded off a bit of that chill in the air and Thomas felt his eyelids growing heavy even as he shifted to roll his shoulder more against that supporting spot. Newt pulled his eyes from the dance of firelight and made an offhand remark with that parched chuckle sounding again._

“ _It’d be romantic if we weren’t sure if we’re going to die any second.” He motioned to the fire as a whole, the dark night, everything, and Thomas couldn’t help but laugh at the skewed words._

“ _What even counts as that anymore?”_

_What counted for anything? Or meant anything? His friends were all he had, they had accepted him when he had been only a ghost to them, and the bonds were closer than family anymore; Thomas knew that meant a great deal. Newt was his cheerleader of sorts, not always forgiving with his scrutiny but still the first to jump to his defense, the first to call him out and the first to argue the mistakes he made didn’t outweigh where he was leading them._

_What did anything mean in a world where he didn’t know himself, didn’t know what was ahead, and didn’t know if any of them would reach the end?_

_What happened when they did reach the end and had to adjust to another new world they didn’t feel like they were a part of?_

_Lately, Newt’s faith was just about what Thomas had to fall back on._

“ _Dunno, don’t remember before and probably didn’t work out so well for me in that department anyway so I’m only guessing at it.” Newt yawned and lifted his shoulder again in a playful jostle of his friend, “Probably worked out better for me than you, but I didn’t want to make you feel bad about it.”_

_Thomas fell back into soft laughter again at the teasing, feeling some of the tension slide from his aching muscles with the chance to even do that much; a little fresh air in the humor._

 

“ _We gotta go to sleep Tommy, tomorrow’s going to be another long day.”_

_Even with the words said neither of them moved, sleep only held the echo of Winston’s labored breathing and the fear it tangled through the both of them; something they could almost escape there in the glowing light that felt surreal._

_Thomas dropped his eyes shut again and felt a faint stir at his side as Newt shifted enough to compensate for his weight while he leaned there. A hand, he wasn’t so sure which of them had moved first, dropped closer to another with the motion and somehow Thomas found their fingers woven together._

_And just like that he was pulled to his feet, urged into the few heavy steps that moved from range of the fire to a spot close enough to be warm where Thomas sank down in the sand that made for a very poor bed. Newt joined him, he didn’t need to pull his eyes back open to feel the presence moving about in the effort to settle, the scratching whisper of the sifting ground yielding as the blond came to rest close enough to touch._

_Close enough didn’t feel like enough anymore though, and Thomas couldn’t put his finger on why exactly but it didn’t stop the sensation from creeping across his foggy brain. His arm lifted, lethargic, and dropped to snake around Newt’s midsection even as his nose ended up buried in dusty hair that carried the scent of sun-bleached travel. He barely noticed the moment of almost-pause the gesture caused when it slipped so swiftly away and Newt’s breathing evened into a lull._

“ _Hey Tommy?”_

_The reply was all he could muster in a murmured sound, forcing himself to stay awake to hear the quiet conversation; it felt important and his hazy mind was grasping at it._

“ _Can I ask you something?” Newt had moved, barely, but Thomas could feel the way he tipped a shoulder back against his chest as the distance between them faded with the motion. He nodded against the crest of Newt’s shoulder, wider awake than he had been just before, at least enough to slide his weighted eyelids open. “Yeah?”_

_“What-”_

 

Thomas groaned with the sudden jolt that sent his skull bouncing off the wall behind him, trying desperately to hold to that memory that was dissolving away as he woke from the dream; there had only been a handful of old memories from those days that still held a silvery haze to them and he feared one day he might lose them.

Might lose those moments with Newt, even if he hadn’t realized back then the importance of them.

But it was gone, faded back into his thoughts until sleep gave it back to him again. The dull ache in the back of his head still sounding, Thomas slowly recalled where they were and what had happened. Eyes cast down to the form still tense in the makeshift restraints at his feet, Minho opposite him in his own seat with head dipped and arms crossed while he dozed; he knew they must have been getting close to home.

The window did not offer him the edge of snow-peaked mountains or sprawling ocean; only dried forests that climbed and spread for miles with bits of greenery fighting through the scorched earth.

Startled, Thomas hastily undid the buckle to the belt holding him to the seat and made his way across the hold of the aircraft to the front where Gally was staring forward and Brenda’s focus was on the skies ahead.

“Where are we? Shouldn’t we have been home by now?” Even as he spoke the words, hand resting on the top of Gally’s seat, he heard a mutter from the other man.

Brenda, thankfully, was more clear with her words, “We should be, but we’re not going home.”

“What?” For an instant Thomas froze, old uncertainty gripping him tightly in the chest even as his fingers closed more firmly. “Why aren’t we going home?”

“I tried that, the medical team radio’ed us about two hours ago while you were passed out. They wanted to know how it went, when we told them they said we wouldn’t be able to come back to the camp until they knew what was actually going on with the Flare.” Brenda’s voice was tense, Thomas could see the same old suspicious in her eyes but she was trying hard to fight it. “They want to make sure if it has mutated that the strain isn’t one that’s resistant to the cure. If we go home now everyone not immune could be infected and then everyone back there who isn’t might be. Plus, we don’t even know if immunity that worked before works against this.”

 

The words sank into Thomas’ stomach like a heavy stone, leaving him choking on it and struggling for a moment to catch his breath. “Then where are we going?”

The thoughts swirling inside his skull were dark ones, the guilt he thought he’d won out over years past that suddenly felt so fresh once again.

What had he done in bringing his friends to a place where everything they thought they had safe suddenly stood to change.

“There’s a medical lab out here, they’re meeting us there.” Brenda replied with a tired sigh, “I tried to argue it, Thomas, I know none of us want to go there. I wouldn’t even want to know. But I don’t want to take anything back with us either when things are finally stable.”

Thomas moved the hand to her shoulder to give it a squeeze, knowing she had made a choice that had to be made; he should have been the one to do it instead of leaving that weight on her. “You’re right, we don’t have a choice.”

But not having a choice did nothing to ease the tension that had taken up the pit of his stomach, nor did it comfort the glint of fear Brenda held so strongly in check, and even Gally only stared at his bandaged hand with a sense of nervousness that practically filled the air in that small space.

Even Thomas wasn’t sure, not that time, what to say.

 

The silence lasted out the entire rest of the trip, there was little resting for any of them and Thomas envied Minho’s blissful ignorance in sleep until they had to nudge him awake once they were back on the ground. The brief round of catch-up Brenda had to fill Minho in on was only a background sound to Thomas’ set stare out those windows; dead trees surrounded them and thin grass scattered over the ground in sparse spots reminding him that the world was recovering but wasn’t fully healed.

The chunk of stone and torn fences situated in the middle of that dying forest was too distant to feel real, too looming to ignore.

When they arrived, a willowy woman who had to be in her later forties and a younger dark-eyed man with a handful of what he assumed to be guards in tow, Thomas had placed himself at the edge of the cargo hold door while he waited. The steady pressure of Minho’s hand at his shoulder kept him grounded but Thomas’ mind had fallen back to roaming, trying to slip away from the moment.

“They’re on our side,” Brenda reminded him, even if the words didn’t have much conviction behind them; too many memories of laboratories and science being anything but friendly. She might not have experienced it directly herself but the stories she’d heard made it easy to decide where she stood, and how thin the idea felt.

 

“You must be Thomas,” the woman approached with a smile and old memories sparked up the wariness but he held it in check, felt Minho’s grip tighten some on his shoulder as he nodded. “I’m doctor Ellory, but, please, call me Alison. From what we heard we thought you might need a surgeon, and those are in short supply these days. This is doctor Issac; he’s here because of his experience with treating the virus. He’s worked extensively with the cure once it was found, so hopefully, he’ll be able to make sense of this strain if it is different than the original.”

All her reassurances felt weak, nearly hollow; Thomas had seen kindness turn swiftly into ambitions that damned people so his trust wasn’t as swift as it had been once in the past; both of the doctors looked uncertain but it was finally the woman who spoke once again.

“I know this was a change in your plans but the doctor at your settlement thought he wouldn’t have the means to deal with everything once he heard what all was going on. We’re just here to help, I know you have apprehensions about that.”

She didn’t move any closer and he was grateful for that much, the space left between them, if he could have left it that way Thomas would have but it wasn’t going to bring them any closer to curing Newt or figuring out if they did have something to worry about in being exposed to something else in the city.

 

The first step felt like a hundred pounds to lift his boot but the next was easier, until he had moved to the ground and gave the others just enough space to see into the aircraft. Already he could see the gleam of curiosity in the man’s eyes over the form on the floor and it sent a flicker of warning through him.

“This isn’t some experiment, we didn’t bring him here to be some test subject; we just need the cure and need to make sure we’re all okay.” With the words, Thomas’ eyes shifted to where Gally was skirting the edge of the ground, bandaged hand help to his chest and the other still wrapped tight around his rifle.

“Of course,” Alison breached the silence carefully; the world still had a long way to go in trusting some things and science had become one of them. It was little surprise though, given what had spawned the world they now lived in, and the trauma the survivors had gone through; she had little doubt that the group that arrived were going to be on guard. Trust was a rare commodity in the world, not often spared for those such as herself, but they had come and that was almost more than she had thought would happen.

“If you’d prefer we can offer you supplies to stay here, or you’re welcome to stay in the compound with us while we work. Anyone who was injured though I’d prefer to have there so we can monitor for signs of new infections; for everyone’s safety.”

“Guess that means me,” Gally muttered, voice rough at the edges over the prospects of being alone in that building with people they could only trust in the sense that they might be able to help.

They needed to stick together, in the past it had always been the difference between making it out if things went bad, but Thomas’ uncertainty in it lay with Minho. The man had suffered the worst of all of them at the hands of scientists and their experiments; he couldn’t ask him to walk back into some medical facility as though none of those old nightmares didn’t still dig under the surface for him. There were a lot of things Thomas did ask of his friends, sometimes far too much, but that was something he couldn’t bring himself to.

 

“We should all go,” Minho volunteered, even though his voice was just shaky enough to Thomas to hear the hitch in it, “Makes more sense to keep an eye on things.”

He didn’t want to go, didn’t want to hear the doors shut behind him and have those old fears stirred up from the confinement that he hadn’t been able to stand well since they’d rescued him in the city, but they couldn’t be separated.

While the others milled about getting ready to make the trek to the building towering in the distance Thomas stole away to the side for a moment, catching Minho by himself.

“You sure you can do this?”

“We’ll laugh about this later when it’s all fine and we’re just being paranoid,” Minho countered, “Right now we came this far and we can’t go back.”

Thomas hoped that was the case, it was just the learned paranoia that WCKD had instilled in them; the world had changed. He just wasn’t going to place any bets just yet as to if it had changed enough, not until he’d seen it for himself.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the risk of this feeling a bit like filler, I decided to post the next two chapters at the same time as there are some things I want to establish before digging into some breaking points in the story.   
> There's also more mention of the OCs in this, and while they're by no means the focus of the story their story is going to be a part of the progression, so hopefully, a little background on them is forgivable.   
> I hope everyone is enjoying things so far; rating will be changing soon, warnings will be added, and things are going to be shifting forward. 
> 
> As a bit of a sidebar, I was going to post my playlist for this work while I wrote it but I've decided to just post part of it if people are curious, since the whole thing gives away too much of the latter tone of the story.   
> [Part One](https://open.spotify.com/user/m0u8k1aowp2lcojghpmzw2p7e/playlist/0fhDsaVwIJufhAz2lqEKMV)  
> I might post the rest towards the end, haven't decided yet.

“I can’t say that it’s good, or even easy to make sense of.”

Thomas’ eyes hadn’t strayed from the isolation room even as he listened to the words; the dim light within it only barely outlined Newt’s figure and the occasional twitch that broke through the heavy sedation. In the few hours they had been at the compound everything had become a blur ending in that spot, watching for any sign that the initial injection of the cure had reversed the Flare, had effected it at all; but there had been nothing.

Not a hint of clarity returning, not a hint of sound that wasn’t just a strained snarl in the dark before that sedation had finally kicked in enough to slow some of the endless clawing and thrashing. There was nothing and with every second Thomas felt that reality eat further and further under his skin.

 

“It doesn’t mean it won’t work, just that it doesn’t work yet.” As though reading the heavy thoughts on his mind by the weary look on his face, the newly met doctor, Issac, had joined Thomas in that vigil. He was taking notes of course, but had been kind enough not to share all the details he penned; the black and white of the situation felt looming enough.

“So we try again?” Thomas just wanted the confirmation that he wasn’t the only one not giving up yet.

“No,” the doctor’s answer drew those troubled eyes towards him, “We try something different. It’s not as simple to just cure a virus. Actually, there’s no way to do that, viruses just have to run their course, short of changing genetics to do it. But disease isn’t the correct term either; it’s something closer to a hybrid, and that’s why it took so long to find a cure.”

Isaac trailed off after a moment when he realized Thomas had only barely heard him while he stared through the thick glass of the observation window; a conversation best left for another time. Or so he thought, until the other man shifted his gaze back in his direction with a questioning expression.

 

“Okay, disease, whatever it is; if the cure isn’t working then what will?”

“That’s the complicated part. We theorized a while back that the Flare was a virus at first because it acted like an immature virus; when it became obvious that it had mutated to become airborne and infected the last city it was the first sign of it becoming mature.” Isaac knew that the knowledge might not be the easiest to grasp but sometimes there was comfort in knowing. “Viruses are incredibly adaptive, on some level they’re just as prone to evolution as any other organism; when they have a chance they always change their design to counter ways to destroy them.”

“So the Flare changed in the city, so that’s what this is now?” It only scattered more questions across his thoughts but some of the blanks were easier to fill in that others and Thomas had always been good at doing exactly that.

“That’s where the theory of it being a hybrid comes into play; we found the cure to the existing strain as the city fell, it just took us time after to pin it down. But what we left behind in the city was an entire section of the population without antibodies or immunity, and years for the infection to continue to evolve.”

Isaac lifted his hand towards the window, the prospects of something outside even what had been speculated in the past right in front of them.

“We had theories of what the airborne infection might turn into but we never tried to go back to a dense population to find out; now that we know we’re going to have to take our original cure and adjust it to the new strain.” There was a dismal note to it all though, and that wasn’t far to leave in the air. “It’s far from impossible; it just might take weeks to get there.”

It wasn’t the answer Thomas wanted but it was one that still wasn’t a crushing blow; just a slow tick of madness with the clock. “And we stay here until we find it.”

“At this point I don’t think you could leave anyway, not until we know if this strain is infectious to someone with the original cure antibodies; we’re just lucky that one of your group doesn’t have natural immunity, and we have a direct infection site on someone that is immune as well. From a test group standpoint we couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

When he realized how the words sounded the narrow-shouldered man cringed and shook his head in apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it that way; it’s just exciting from the standpoint of the science. We’re not trying to use any of you, Alison said in the past that was something you all suffered. Honestly both she and I are just as much part of this test as any of you since we’re not immune either, but have had the vaccine made from the cure.”

“You never got caught for the Maze?” Thomas took a quick moment to look the doctor over; aside from being shorter than himself and a bit on the slighter side, it was difficult to decipher if he were around the same age or older. The latter had to be the case, given the way Issac spoke of not knowing fully what had gone on in the search for that cure.

“No, when the Flare was released I wasn’t anywhere near the cities here, further north, and lucky enough that when they did start testing I already had a safe place even if I was probably a little older than what they were looking for.”

As he listened Thomas’ found his thoughts wandering again; he’d heard years past that the virus had been purposely released in the aftermath of the world slowly dying under the punishment of the solar disruptions in that perfect storm of science trying so hard to save the world that it damned it, and the discovery had stung deeply.   
Knowing his own part in it, something he still couldn’t remember fully, was only another reminder that desperation pushed everyone to extremes.   
And here they were again, with strangers, putting faith in them for the sake of what he had thought was only searching for Newt but it had blown up so much larger.

“I wasn’t immune,” Issac continued with a frown drawn across his lips, “Neither was my twin sister; since we shared the same genetics that wasn’t surprising. When she caught the infection it was in the contact-transfer stage so I was fortunate not to get it as well. If you can call it that; but it was enough of a sign to me that I had a stake in trying to help find the cure too, for not being able to save her.”

The words made Thomas’ chest felt hollow, like all the air had left his lungs for a moment. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had family, he’d found one in the Gladers and a few others as time passed, and had lost people who had felt every bit like a brother torn away from him but the thought of losing someone that shared so much was a misery he couldn’t fathom.

“So I understand how important this is to you, and why you can’t let it go.” Isaac offered at best a weak smile that Thomas couldn’t force himself to return. “I’ll find the way to cure the disease and Alison will handle the rest; you just have to trust us for a little longer.”

“I don’t know if we have much choice,” Thomas admitted, knowing he wanted to trust the man, wanted to like his attempts to be warm, but that was something that he couldn’t put before looking after his friends.

He’d heard words along those lines before and seen how even the best intentions turned dark when pushed too far.

 

“Yeah, weeks of this sounds great, I needed a vacation.” Minho’s voice was a disgruntled mumble from the bunk across opposite of where Thomas sat on his own; sharing the conversation he’d had with the doctor had gone over about as well as he expected.

It was thin ice with Minho, not that Thomas doubted his loyalty, but he could already see the hint of anxiety starting to shown at his edges while they had been shown around the compound. There had been no locked doors but after the testing Minho had gone through alone even a shut one was too much at times for him.

The first few months at the camp Minho had slept outside, unable to stand the idea of sleeping inside walls without breaking out into a cold sweat when he woke. Those months had been long ones of trading out nights with Frypan and Gally in the cold, sleeping beside the fire in the company of their restless friend.

He had refused to go anywhere near the rooms where medical equipment was set up, pulling Thomas aside when they’d first arrived inside the decaying hospital and confessing that he couldn’t see Newt that way; wired up and subject to all the needles and tests.

It was too close to the hell he had endured and Thomas had understood it wasn’t something he could ask.

The weeks ahead were going to be a strain upon them all but Minho already had an edge to his silence that wasn’t the same as Thomas had known before they’d managed to pry him back out of WCKD’s claws.

 

“Home’s only a radio call away,” Brenda chimed in from the bunk above Minho, an arm lifted high with the radio borrowed in hand. “It even works inside, better than some of ours do.”

When she leaned over the side of bunk it was to drop the handheld next to Minho, sinking back against the mattress after. “I can only field so much of Jorge asking me if we’re dead and threatening to come find us if something happens.”

There were people back home waiting on them; Jorge, Frypan, Aris and all the others who had been part of those horrible days and had settled into the camp after. That was worth remembering. It was also worth taking some comfort in when it was in such short supply otherwise.   
Thomas couldn’t keep his attention fully on the conversation while Minho fiddled with the radio to find the right channel, could hardly keep himself focused half the time anymore.

Everything the past few days had rustled the old demons, gave them a shove back from the parts of his mind where they’d lain in slumber for almost-peaceful few years.

And yet, there they were again; the Flare creeping up in some new way, jaws still just as sharp.

“Thomas, you awake over there?”

The words jolted him free from the haze and Thomas blinked it away with a murmur, “What? Yeah?”

The radio in Minho’s hand crackled and his friends were watching him with curious expressions that made him finally nod and move to join them; he needed that reminder of what was home now as much as anyone else.

 

The conversation was still lingering in his mind when days later found him back at the observation window, watching Issac’s steady hand with the syringe with another test run of that supposed cure to the variation of the Flare that was bubbling in Newt’s blood. After the third run of it Thomas had begun to stop holding his breath for an instant reaction, or any reaction at all, even if the latter wasn’t something he would fully accept. And while the seconds ticked by with no change he slumped against the wall, eyes cast toward the ceiling in a silent bid for just a little more patience while his world remained in that chaos.   
Just a little longer and it had to work, it wouldn’t be years this time because they had the start they needed; but how long?

With only the sight of Issac putting things away to greet him when he looked back to the window, Thomas left the doctor to it and made his way down the hallways of the building. The guards were always present at the doorways but it was more for the sake of keeping people inside safe rather than keeping them confined; it still made Thomas tense to pass them but he was trying to adjust to the idea of people actually being on their side for once.   
Being given free range to wander as he pleased helped, it shook off the feeling of the walls being too suffocating, but the endless circling wasn’t granting him answers when Thomas had grown used to action being the way the world changed.

The handful of rooms he passed he rarely bothered to look into, one he noticed as having the remains of an earlier card game Gally and the guards had been playing the night before; little hints of what could have been normality. But among it all were still old reminders; faded photos on dusty desks, old beds empty, life that had abandoned from that place in one overwhelming moment.

  
People left parts of themselves behind and he couldn’t help but wonder if the ghosts were glad for the company they had once again.

 

“Place gives me nightmares.”

He didn’t need to look to know the voice, after a while friendship became one of those things where recognizing a person came down to a feeling. Minho was a tall shadow in the edge of his vision as Thomas shifted his gaze to the floor to mull over the words; they all had their demons to battle but his friend’s used places like the one they found themselves in as a playground.

“Started up again?” Thomas sighed, knowing that the past year had seen most of those nightmares gone. “Same as before?”

“Makes me wonder if I’m losing it some days; still wake up not knowing if it’s real, if anybody around me is.” Tense words, it was never easy for Minho to admit those shortcomings but if there was anyone who would listen it would be Thomas.

There were moments Thomas himself felt like that, as if the world were some surreal trick his mind was playing while he was really locked away in some laboratory with his life being drained away.

But what was real was there, breathing, waiting, because it had to be; otherwise, nothing they had come so far in meant anything and it would have been far too cruel a game for it all to be just some drug-induced fever dream.

“Maybe you should go back, you and Brenda could.” Thomas approached the possibility with caution, and even then it felt flat when Minho dismissed it with a quick shake of his head.

“You came back for me.”

And that summed it all up, better than anything else could have.

 


	7. Chapter 7

The mountains weren’t the sprawling green that they once were, the world had burned and was slowly crawling free of the ashes, and Thomas had been more accustomed to watching the seasons change at the edge of those snowy peaks, feeling the coming of winter and the crest of spring in the ocean air; it was strange to think he’d been in one spot long enough to miss the sights and sounds of it.

Those mountains weren’t home, but home _was_  waiting and he wasn’t running a race to somewhere he couldn’t see in his mind’s eye.

He wasn’t alone either; barely an hour went by without someone in that building crossing his path with the limited amount of usable space in the decaying hospital. The upper levels were in too much disrepair to venture into so he had taken to tucking away in a corner of what had once been a spot with tall streaky windows; searching for a place to think.

Almost quiet enough to fall into the memories, some part of his mind replaying those old words.

_Please Tommy, please._

Please make it better, please let him go because there was no other way; Thomas hadn’t been able to do that. If that were the case he never would have gone back on some impossible chance, but impossible seemed to be the undertone to his life; there was nothing he did better than pulling some wild chance out of the thin air.

He had done for other people, he’d do it for Newt.

 

“ _I’m done, just leave me here to die.” The blond had crashed to the lump of thin sleeping bag and gathered fabric meant to serve as warmth in the tent, making an impressive show of burrowing in among them. Even that felt like luxury though; cover from the sand blowing in the air, more between the hard ground and the cool air than they’d had ever since leaving the compound. It was nothing to take for granted, and clearly something to be taken advantage of._

_Thomas had only laughed and gave the Newt-shaped lump under that mound a nudge with the toe of his shoe. “It’ll be easy to bury you out here, plenty of sand. Probably won’t even have to, we can just find a hole and drag you into it.”_

_The groan was exaggerated and the entire lump gave a twitch, refusing to give up the gathering warmth there._

“ _You’ll regret it when I come back to haunt you,” Newt retorted from his blanket fort, “Or just push ‘ya outside when you fall asleep. Greenie.”_

_It was a threat he wouldn’t have put past Minho if he were in a mood but Newt wasn’t going to abandon him to the chilly desert air, at least not in anything more than in jest. But the old teasing title made Thomas snicker softly, tipping his eyes towards the front of the tent, hearing beyond it the sounds of life in the evening hours. Everyone had been in a desperate race since they’d arrived there, since Jorge and Brenda had finally led them to people who could help, who needed their help as well; since that first chance to believe maybe they weren’t alone._

_The others were enjoying a rare chance to just be around other people, to have that night to look ahead; or more likely to just get drunk and forget for a while. He wasn’t going to forsake them that escape, not when it was safe to just let go a little. True, he’d probably find Frypan dragging into that shared tent grumbling about a headache and Minho crashing in near dawn to collapse more on the people sleeping than near them, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way._

_In the blurry line between friends and family Thomas knew his was better than he might have deserved._

_But he had a moment to himself, just a serious lack of comfortable spot since it was all being occupied; Thomas smirked and made a point of flopping down to use the whole lot of sleeping bag and person as a pillow. “Nah, I’m good right here,” he shifted enough to prod an elbow at some soft spot, earning a mumble that he couldn’t really understand._

“ _Sorry, can’t hear you,” He laughed again when Newt shoved him off and sat up with a look of mock-annoyance he could barely hold onto._

_There was a fair amount of pushing things around and complaining. “First decent sleep we get in weeks and you’re making a mess of it.” Newt yawned and propped an elbow against the ground as he sat there; he could hear the noise outside as well but he just didn’t feel like getting lost in it._

_Thomas dredged up an impressive amount of false innocence as he turned his attention to Newt, but it wasn’t really too effective given his naturally pensive expression much of the time. If that mattered Newt didn’t seem to mind in the least, the thin line to his lips softening because, somehow, Thomas just had a talent for making him smile._

“ _Don’t look so bloody pleased with yourself, just because I’m too tired to kick you out.”_  

_That was hardly all the reason Thomas was pleased with himself, no, the fact that he’d coaxed that eye-rolled chuckle out of Newt was even better._

_It was something fuzzy at the edges, who moved first, but it was so comfortably natural in the moment, nothing to overthink in the ease of lack of space between them and the instinctive tilt of Newt’s head. Somewhere beyond that moment the world was in ruins and the skies were bleeding dark, but how the simplest of sensations of chapped lips tentative at first against own before the tension melted could make it all just fade away didn’t make any sense._

_But it didn’t have to._

_In the very back of his mind, Thomas was almost expecting someone to burst into that tent, to disrupt the moment because it almost made more sense that something would._

_Life was oddly kind and the impromptu kiss drew itself out a few long moments, lacking the sort of rush that everything had taken the last few weeks, but that didn’t stop Thomas’ breath from skipping a beat or his restless hands from burying around the edge of a blanket in a twisted curl. His pulse was racing in his veins until the air rushed back his lungs as it drew to an end, too soon and with a tingle still lingering in his skin. The silence that followed fell over the small space, something perplexing and overcast like a foggy day._

_But it was clear skies in Newt’s eyes when they met his own, that familiar smile just barely lopsided and the bridge of his nose lit up with a faint flush of color under the freckles and dust; Thomas didn’t mean to stare but he couldn’t stop himself._

_Friendship and sandy air, something indistinct that had to be the blond; it all still lay lightly like an impossible taste upon his lips, distracting. He wasn’t sure what he meant to do at all, or maybe he did, maybe with the dozens of glances back, the instinctive way he slipped between the harsh world and the blond when it lashed out at them, the way Newt’s unwavering faith kept them all on their feet._

_Thomas wasn’t so sure he was as confused over the moment as he wanted to be, it didn’t feel so strange at all. The world was a battle and Newt was his best friend, welcoming and steady; it should have felt out of place but all the little notches fit together just right between them. It had been building, in the back of his mind; at some point he’d felt the lines go blurry again between himself and Newt._

“ _Well now there’s never going to be any end to your looking far too pleased with yourself,” Newt trailed off in a murmur of humor, hand dropping to what Thomas thought would be his lap but came to rest on his own, warm anchor in that cool evening air._  

_He couldn’t hold back the grin that crept up on him; brighter than that smile had been in what felt like forever._

 

He blinked the memory away because for all the way it made his chest tighten it hurt too, hurt so badly and it had over the past few years. He couldn’t say it had been a first kiss, he couldn’t even say the days before with Brenda in that drugged haze had been, because his life before was still a mystery.

But all that mattered was who they were now, as Newt had said himself when he’d been struggling with the guilt of it all; and all that had mattered then was exactly that. He  _had_  felt like a new person, one that had slipped away in the years that had followed.

He just hoped that when they had Newt back he could find his old self again; because the version Newt had let him be was the one he wished he still was.

“Thomas, I think you may want to see something,” Alison had slipped up on him while he’d been lost in the old thoughts, had been quiet while she watched the troubled look on his face and finally had spoken to pull him free of whatever had his distant. Like what she had seen with all of them, in their own ways, Thomas and his friends had never fully recovered from what they had been through. But who had; the world made demands that were hard to heal from.

Her soft words nudged him into awareness and his brow furrowed as he took them in, unfolding from the spot where he sat on the cracked windowsill as he tried to put the past back into place and rejoin the present. He didn’t ask the question, some part of him was almost afraid to, but he went with her, reckless and hopeful, that tightness still rooted in his chest.

 

In some desperate way he’d wanted to see it go faster, wanted to see Newt well again and those vicious dark veins faded away, the tangles of ghastly vines gone, so seeing them only faded, growing pale against that already nearly ivory pallor felt like a kick to the stomach.

Why did it have to be so slow?

“He’s getting better?” Thomas had bypassed the observation window, even at Alison’s warning not to, and inside that room he could see the inky tones dissolving away in Newt’s skin, almost dared to touch it but it looked so painful he was wary to even try in spite of that heavy sedation keeping him in whatever dreamless sleep he’d been in since they’d arrived.

 

“The infection is responding,” Alison stepped carefully to the other side of the room to make a quick check of the dosage files as she tried to explain, “I know it’s not as fast as any of us want, but as advanced as the infection is if it were to clear up suddenly the shock could kill him. So in a way we’re fortunate we found something that does work slowly.”

Thomas’ eyes fell to tracing those vines, where they curled over skin and erupted from it, where the Flare was claiming small parts of its’ host, and how it tangled so thickly around that broke knife handle. If the infection was dying away then where was it going to leave Newt?

“He’s going to be very weak, and this is the part where I have to step in. Issac doesn’t have as much experience with medicine in this sense; we’re going to have to be very careful as the infection dies out. The Flare will have to be physically removed where it’s become a physical infection and we’re just going to have to see if he’ll be stable enough after that, and how bad the wound is.”

Alison could hardly guess at it, there was no way to inspect much with those thick lines of the infection grown over that wound; her fear was if it ran too deeply there wasn’t going to be a chance to save him, his body just wouldn’t be able to tolerate the strain of so much damage.

It was a morbid truth that the Flare had been the only thing keeping Newt in that half-alive state for so long, and without it there might not have been a chance to save him from the damage already done.

It was a nightmare, knowing that Newt could still die by his hand in the end, and to have come so far and have to accept that; Thomas just wasn’t ready to. He wasn’t ready to move from the spot either, even as Alison urged him from that quiet room. He looked back, more than once, as the gap of distance grew between himself and that doorway.

 

“We still have a chance, maybe the best chance we’re going to have,” she offered as some hint of reassurance and Thomas tried to hold to it but she could see the storm clouds in his eyes. “We’re going to do everything we can, not just for him, but for everyone. If we can do this, bring one person back, we can bring others back even if they’ve been infected for a long time.”

It was like a final key to the door, the one that opened to the world coming back to life, no longer waiting for the Flare to die out when they could finally beat it. Of course what it meant to people as a whole was astounding but Thomas, selfish as it was, couldn’t help fixate on that it meant to one person more than anyone else.

Newt would have probably chided him for that, insisted, again, that they were all in it together and he had to think of what it was going to do to change the world but right then Thomas’ heart wasn’t fighting not to grieve over the entire world so much as just one person with a bright smile that had hidden the ache behind it for the sake of everyone else.

It was going to be different, Newt wasn’t going to have any reason to be miserable anymore; somehow he would see to that himself when it was all over.

“He’s going to be happy about that,” Thomas commented as he let it all roll over, “Saving him is going to make it easier to save other people; Newt’s the type of guy that’s going to mean a lot to.”

“From what I’ve seen that’s a common view of all of you; we’ve all heard your story Thomas, and what all you went through to make things right.” The conversation left them at that window, watching the slow rise and unsteady fall of Newt’s chest, Alison’s voice almost held a somber tone with the words. “It’s nothing to be underestimated.”

“We didn’t have a choice, it sounds crazy but we didn’t; giving up or going back just was never an option.” Along the way there had never been another choice, not when things had been in motion; even when he’d had doubts Thomas had never felt there had been any other option to turn back. “If we would have stopped they would have died, everyone important to me.”

“The mark of a leader; strength for the sake of everyone else even if they don’t know the road.” Alison spoke kindly, she did have respect for the young man and what he had done. “You still haven’t stopped leading though, have you? After this do you plan to?”

Thomas had never thought about it, easier to just look at each day as it came, each problem as it was there, and leave the future to whatever it would become.

“I think the world would forgive you if you just wanted a piece of life for yourself; too many people don’t get that anymore.”

Maybe it was true, he could feel a ghost of a kiss on his lips and what had felt like a moment in a world too big and too intense to really stop to think about what it meant no longer felt like only that since it had haunted him for years. He could count dozens of others, those memories, and the bittersweet ways he missed them; maybe it had been selfish to look for Newt but that had to be forgivable.

After saving so much, fighting so hard, if it was going to be the last battle he fought before letting himself actually live in some version of peace it was going to undo that one moment that had taken so much away from him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter makes mention of medical information and somewhat descriptive reference to wounds, blood, and various treatment; fair warning now to those sensitive to such topics.

Thomas had been ghosting the hallway for days, slipping into the room whenever Alison or Issac would allow it, and sometimes when they weren’t around to usher him off while they worked. The others had come as well, now and then, in their own ways.

Brenda with worry barely hidden in her eyes and her palm pressed to the glass because she didn’t dare compromise that space, a heavy mix of expectation and cautious hope she was too careful to allow anyone else to see. She was waiting for him to come back, a thousand questions waiting but the most important being if he was okay after those agonizing years.  
She felt the guilt of leaving as acutely as Thomas did; Newt had known about her own infection and it hadn’t put a wall between them, she just hadn’t fought hard enough to help him. It was full circle for her; she had to see him get better.

It was Gally who surprised Thomas somewhat, his irritation should have kept him away but he showed up regardless; stone-faced and jaw set in his silence. He hadn’t done more than watch, eyes trailing from one humming machine to the next, distant in his observation but there none the less. His bandaged hand still tense at his side but the anger had tamed in his eyes, replaced by something harder to place; he’d turned his back before a long time ago and being granted forgiveness in spite of that had taught him, even with the rough edges, to give just a little of it back, if he could risk it. Newt was a risk, he was there to see to it that wasn’t forgotten too quickly, but maybe there was a little hope there too.

Minho was the one who had ached to watch, even if Thomas hadn’t meant to stumble across him during his dead of night vigil. He still couldn’t stand the sight for long, too haunted, but it hadn’t stopped him from sitting at the door with shoulders high against it, talking to the thin air as though Newt were right beside him; it was as close as he dared to get. Most nights it went that way and Thomas had learned to be quiet when he made his way down that hallway so he could slip away without disturbing him. Most nights the conversations were a rolling banter of all the good that existed in the Safe Haven, how they finally had a home to go to, where it was waiting and what was there for them all.  
It was an anchor, and Thomas couldn’t bring himself to think it fell on deaf ears; somehow Newt had to know.

He was bolder though, when the hallway was empty he stole away into the room and planted himself in the folding chair next to that bed to watch the time progress. Three years was so much more than a few weeks but those few felt like decades. Alison warned him about Newt’s weak condition but Issac had caught him in that room several times, making the wild suggestion once or twice that it had to be better than the silence. He hadn’t even commented when Thomas, half asleep with his elbow on the bed, had dropped his hand to tangle fingers in Newt’s while the long morning hours had drug onward.  
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, but he’d worked it out in his own head that when Newt did wake up he wasn’t going to want to be alone after so long in the solitude of that infection claiming him.

“What’s it going to hurt?” The doctor had shrugged with the words, only slightly amending them, “I mean..in the..to you sense. We already know you’re immune, more immune than everyone else for whatever reason; and people need to know there’s a reason to come back.”

“You think he knows?” It was a hesitant question, still so many uncertainties over if Newt was going to wake angry over those years, Thomas was more worried over that than he cared to admit.

“From a scientific standpoint? There’s no evidence. What do I think personally? People need that, and they know.”

Issac had such a kind smile, it was hard to imagine him fighting the way they had, struggling day to day and making choices to end the lives of others just to survive; maybe he’d been spared that much and that’s where the well of simple hope came from. But whatever the case Thomas was grateful to feel as though someone was willing to think it did make a difference.

Thomas had his suspicions at first, over the doctors and their plans, their intentions were nothing easy to stomach after the road they’d all traveled, but he’d begun to trust them. There had to be a point when the world got smaller, he was so used to trusting only in those he’d gone through those long years with that shutting the rest out had turned into a habit but time was teaching him otherwise.

“I won’t tell Alison,” Issac chuckled as he sat down on one of the counters since Thomas was occupying the only chair in the room, flipping through charts to record changes in those monitor readings. “She doesn’t mean to be so flat about it at times, it’s just that all of this is going to bring other people back if it’s true, and that’s something she wants to be very careful with.”

Of course, there was importance in it, but all Thomas could see was the importance right in front of him, lying in that bed. All too often he’d known tunnel vision as a means to survive and the old habit was ingrained all the way to his bones.

“We’re used to looking out for each other.” He mentioned as a way of explaining why it was harder to see that larger picture.

Issac nodded, a few more notes scrawled before he glanced up over the edge of the folder. “Nobody really fights for the world, you fight for the people who mean something to you. It just so happens that you doing that saved the world along the way.”

The words held a weight that made Thomas uncomfortable, made him long for what felt like the obscurity of the Safe Haven. That place where time had made him less a hero and just a normal person over the years; and again the world outside of it existed but only in ideas and the radio communications that came through now and then.  
A world they had helped push towards something good again; the thought was almost overwhelming.

“You said before you weren’t around here when the Flare got bad,” Thomas grasped for the question to steer away from the conversation because it left him uncertain of what to say; he’d never been good at talking about himself.

“Ontario, or, what used to be that; that’s where I was. My whole family actually, we moved there a couple of years before the world started to fall apart. That’s where I met Alison; she was my doctor at the time.” The folder was set aside on the table, from behind the edge of his glasses the young doctor’s caramel-hued eyes went a bit hazy with the memories. “After that, I started studying the research side of medicine, but I wasn’t very far into it when the Flare was released. And when we found out how bad things were getting everywhere else Alison and a few other doctors in the hospital where we worked decided the best idea would be to pool resources and stay there.”

The story held Thomas’ attention, it bought up a dozen questions as well but he held his tongue for the moment, only the beep of the heart monitor stole his attention for an instant before it shifted back to Issac.

“I ended up there because of my sister; after she had my nephew, Daniel, she became insulin dependent from gestational diabetes. Our dad went out first when he figured out things weren’t going to get better after a few days, we waited a week for him to come back before we didn’t have a choice. We almost made it, mom caught it a couple of days short of getting there, so by the point when it was just the three of us we were out of time; it’s almost easy to forget that people still died from normal diseases those first few weeks.”

Issac sighed, the sound was uncharacteristically heavy compared to the usual upbeat tone that carried his words but the past had a way of doing that to people. He sat for a moment, silent and rubbing his thumb against the curve of his index finger until he found the words he was after. Thomas himself had all but forgotten that people suffered in ways other than the desperation that had been the blur of the past years; he couldn’t fully recall the chaos of the world falling apart and how many people must have died in that time frame from things that could have been treated otherwise.

“We lost a lot of people to simple things at first because the medicine was just too hard to get for most people; heart disease, diabetes, all sorts of conditions that just couldn’t last out those weeks and months. Alison let us stay, I tried to help, mostly I tried to look after Daniel because he was what I had left. When we figured out we were going to have to hide out because we couldn’t do much else that’s when it was decided that we might as well start learning what we could because the world still needed doctors.”

The world still needed a great many things, heroes included, but on simpler terms just being able to mend a broken bone or stitch a gash was nothing to take for granted; not losing that knowledge had been important then but as the world recovered it had become invaluable. To think in terms of people changing the world was one thing, but it also came down to others who knew how to keep it alive and Thomas knew those stretched out much further than his own actions. If it weren’t for the people back at the Safe Haven who had known how to build and grow things, had knowledge that he just did not, everything would have dwindled.  
Their own doctor had been a kid like the rest of them, barely trained in field medicine, but without even that more people would have been lost those first few years.

“When we heard about the city falling it was a tough blow, but after, the possibility of a cure pulled us back together. Obviously, this place isn’t home for us, we’re spread out most of the time anymore, but now we know of other settlements that need help so we have to go. Alison brought me along because I spent more time before the Flare studying viruses and diseases; most of us have some baseline medical training but the biggest chunk of researchers and scientists went down with WCKD.”

“And now you’ve figured out how to cure this version of the infection.” Thomas trailed off, it felt like a strange mix of luck and circumstance that he led them all to that spot. Why the world hadn’t claimed one kid in the growing chaos of the Flare and given him a chance to get to that moment where he could take that infection apart in ways that Thomas himself didn’t understand felt impossible. It wasn’t anymore impossible than a handful of kids bringing down an entire empire built upon blood and science though; the world didn’t deal too many cards that made sense.

Issac shook his head, hand dropped back to sweep the file back up as he stood, fingers curling against the pages with a soft scratch of sound. “Remission, actually; the Flare is designed to trigger certain things in the genetic code. It’s along the same reason why some people develop genetic diseases and some never do; you can’t change the DNA to the person but the infection can mutate the cells like cancer. Immunity is just a matter of people like you and your friends having an abnormality in your DNA that isn’t present in people who aren’t immune.

“It’s the same reason that now we’re seeing people in pockets around the world who have survived in larger numbers than us because their DNA is different due to their ethnic backgrounds; what used to be China wasn’t hit as hard, neither was most of Egypt. But European lineage suffered the worst from it; England used to be a country and now it’s barely anything, and that carried over here given how so many people have ethnic diversity in their genes.”

With the words came another shift of motion, Issac circling the bed and plucking off the table near it a single slide that had been set there the day before. The smooth glass reflected in the light, pale blue under the surface and holding secrets that only a microscope could truly decipher.

“So we use something the Flare is sensitive to, for lack of better words, in immune genes to create just enough of a response in the body to force it into a dormant state, into remission. As soon as it hit the airborne stage it was triggered in us all, but the original cure made for a good vaccine to keep it from progressing. We’re all already infected, but eventually, generations will be born with natural antibodies and that’s how we finally get rid of it. Nature gives us a break sooner or later if we last it out that long.”

There were layers and layers involved, and with Issac breaking them down it was easier to make sense of, but in the end, it still just felt like a yes or no answer; was Newt going to come back and were people going to be okay?

“Sounds like a lot, I know, but I guess the short answer is, yeah; right now we have something that keeps people from getting infected and we might just have something that can force the existing infection back into remission.” He spared a sympathetic glance towards that bed, the form within it held in an artificial sort of life by the machines that kept lungs expanding, heartbeat regular, and most everything in check. Compared to the sort of technology that WCKD had possessed it felt more primitive but so much of those advances had been lost and were still just slowly being uncovered from the remains.  
Slow steps to take them back to the point of starting over; but steps none the less.

 

None of them were allowed to be present when Alison decided it was safe to remove the traces of the Flare; the risk of infection in the simplest form that could ruin an already weak immune system was the threat then and it was too shaky ground to compromise. She worked in tangent with Issac, the latter playing the part of trauma nurse to her cutting and removing the vicious vines that the virus had manifested. Every spot had to be carefully dissected and the twisted coil of infection had to be cleaned away, pulled free and the surrounding tissues scraped clean of all traces. Stitches mapped over pale skin, accented by bruises fresh from the protesting tug and seemingly rough treatment; but anything less, any tiny hint of that infection left behind could have undone how far it had come.  
There was no taking the chance; she worked with skilled, meticulous hands and blade, putting back together the damaged parts as best she could. In the end, the scattering of to-be scars only stood out more with the way his skin clung to that too-thin form and wasted muscle worn down by time; but his chest continued to rise and his pulse still fluttered weakly inside his ribs.

The monster lurking was all too obvious, as thick and demanding as that broken handle still spiked outward from his chest like a cruel talon dug through him. The effort of untangling the way the Flare had lapped and curled around it, sprouting from that wound.  
Hours ticked by slowly, bit by tiny bit removed, when the blade finally slid free it was with a look of apprehension on the faces of both doctors. Without the proper equipment, something so short in supply, it was hit and miss and more than a little luck that carried them through the operation.  
But still, even in the impossibility of it all, his chest still rose and fell, he still fought at the edge.

Thomas was waiting, they all were, as near to the room as they dared, in a group that paced and counted those hours. Minho’s jaw was set firm at the sight of crimson and stained ash decorating her gloves as Alison pulled them free of her hands, Gally glanced away even as he listened and Brenda stood frozen in her spot against one of the walls.  
Thomas stepped up to her, unwilling to do anything less than face whatever that news might have been.

“He’s breathing, not on his own yet, but hopefully soon. The damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Bad enough that it should have killed him, but we’re never really going to understand exactly what the Flare does and how it keeps a host alive; in some cases that works in our favor.” Her optimism was a careful sort, words measured with both expectations and realistic limits. “The next few days we’ll know, physically, if he’s going to recover. His wounds are extensive but not overly dangerous, aside from the one to his chest; I really don’t have the means to tell yet if there isn’t more intensive damage internally.”

What she didn’t say caught Thomas’ attention though and as much as he wasn’t ready yet he had to voice the question, “Physically?”

“We don’t know how the Flare effects the mind in the stages of full infection since we’ve never brought anyone back from it.” It was all new ground, so very new, and with her own background in psychology, Alison knew the emotional strain and sheer mental trauma from that infection could have done terrible things to most any mind. “We’re doing everything in our power to bring your friend back, we just don’t know yet if we can bring him back the same as he used to be.”

The words echoed inside of Thomas like a crashing wave, rolling over him and dragging him down to drown under that chilly surface. It felt simple to bring Newt there, to restore what they could of his body, to snatch him back from death; but to realize that they might only bring him back to some edge of madness felt like he had failed him all over again.  
It was worse, in fact, if that were to be the case because it would mean he had brought Newt back selfishly only to suffer more.

He hadn’t realized that Alison had stepped away to wash up and rest after the exhausting day behind her, the tunnel around him had caved inward and Thomas had felt the world slip away.

_'You can’t give up, I won’t let you.'_

How long ago had it been since Newt had smiled at him and pulled him out of the slump where he nearly had given up? When he had felt too lost to lead them, too uncertain of himself to give them hope? A lifetime past, back in the sandy and starry nights behind them.

Newt wasn’t there to give him the push forward though, not that time, Newt was the reason he had to do it for himself.

Or not entirely on his own, just a glance up at the quiet faces of his friends around him was a reminder that he wasn’t as alone as he felt in the moment. It was enough to make Thomas nod, in spite of himself, for their sakes, for Newt’s sake.

They believed him, each one of them, still. Sometimes Thomas wasn’t sure how or why he kept their faith, but even then his friends believed him; it was just harder believing himself at that moment. But he hadn’t earned their faith by simply thinking himself right all the time, it was more in knowing he wasn’t always and still not being able to give up.

“He doesn’t have to be the same, just as long as he’s okay.”

 

Later, once the others had either gone to bed or left to wander in silence alone Thomas slipped back to that room alone. The hum of machines, the newest one clicking along with the inhale and exhale of Newt’s lungs in a way that sounded almost ghastly but Alison had assured them all that it was indeed a necessity until the trauma of recovery had passed enough to allow him to breathe on his own once more, were bother a welcome sound and one that haunted him as he pulled the door shut behind him.

Only the dim lights of monitors cast their glow on Newt’s sleeping face, decorated like a dozen other spots the thin sheets obscured with bandages over stitches where once those twisted protrusions of the virus had burst through his skin. Shades of blue and purple were left behind to fade, and in spots, Thomas could see where blood had soaked into those protective layers of gauze.  
But in spite of all of that, it was better, endlessly better, just to see Newt looking more like the memories that fogged his thoughts and visited him in disconnected dreams. Still wrong in some degrees, too pale, too narrow, body too abused by neglect of that infection; but all things that could heal in time if luck held out.  
And that spot where the heaviest bandages lay, thick and barely damp with escaped blood, was a smooth line against his chest rather than the horrible jutted splinter of knife that had almost claimed Newt’s life.

Thomas could still feel it heavy in his hand, could still hear the hiss of air that had spilled from Newt’s lips, could see the look of so much relief and fear in those eyes that had once held only stubborn will to follow him.  
Seeing it gone, finally, was like being able to catch his own breath.

Even as he sank into that chair next to the bed, body feeling too heavy for his shaky legs to hold upright much longer, his fingers longed to touch that spot and be sure it was real, that the blade was finally gone. He settled for taking hold of Newt’s hand instead, head dipped as he sat beside him.  
There had to be words, he needed them right then, needed to say something to help Newt find a way back from whatever darkness he had been trapped in.

“You remember when you said there’s a place out there for us?” Thomas’ eyes shut at the memory of the conversation, the past, the bittersweet history he kept falling back on. “You were right, there was; because we made it that way. It’s waiting for you now, you earned it just as much as we did; it’s better than we imagined.”  
Home wasn’t going to be home anymore without him though, Thomas knew it.

When he squeezed that hand just a little more tightly and he could almost swear he felt the faintest twitch in response; just enough to give him hope.


	9. Chapter 9

 

Newt looked terrible, there was no other way for Thomas to describe it; he had hoped to see with recovery a return of wellness that would be rapid but found himself watching those would-be scars bruise, even the small amount he could see under the edges of the sheets made a canvas of black and blue over most of Newt’s thin form. The shots daily, the dizzying array of fluids in bags that were connected to the line in his arm and switched out often, Alison had explained each one in turn but it was hard to keep up with which was supposed to replace lost blood, what was meant to strengthen his shattered immune system, which healed everything else along the way.  
None of them brought Newt out of that endless sleep though, nothing brought him back.

They still had little idea if the person who woke up would be the one they had lost those years ago.

What shook Thomas to the core were thoughts he hadn’t considered until he had to face down Alison’s logic; Newt might not want to come back to the shape his mind had been left in. That possibility had Thomas pacing the floors, perched near the bed, toying with the faded edges of a note he hadn’t dared to take out of his pocket for years and had dared even less to consider throwing away.

Newt had always hidden his pain so well, and he would be coming back to a world of it. Some instinct drew Thomas’ eyes down to the outline amid the sheets where Newt’s knee rested, where his leg lay hidden away and under fabric lay flesh and muscle damaged long before they had ever left the Glade.  
Before they had ran, before the sands had been blinding and the monsters in the dark real, snarling creatures, before Newt had become one of the nightmares they had all feared.  
Pain hidden, confessed, but never truly healed, no more than the limp that marked his steps; but if Newt had been strong enough to survive that low point surely he could survive another.

It was an ugly world to come back to.

Thomas told himself time and again, Newt would also be coming back to friends and a better world for them all, and to him. The latter might have been selfish but what was hope if not a selfish little glimmer in the mud and dust?  
Selfless acts had helped them to regain the world from people who had nearly ruined it, selfish notions were what kept people surviving.

And every tap of the clock found Thomas battling a confusing mix of frustration and impatience, just one more day behind him until they had begun to bleed one into the next.

  
So he hadn’t fully kept track of how many had passed when Alison had met him at the door to the room, brow set into a furrow and unspoken words hanging on her lips. She nudged him from the doorway and the only words Thomas heard with any real clarity was delusions and incoherence, a dozen medical terms and steady explanation that fell deaf on his ears as his hands found the edge of the observation window from the hallway, eyes trailed across the sleeping figure in that bed.

He couldn’t believe Newt had been awake, couldn't fathom he had missed that moment, only a step away long enough to remind himself of what the air outside felt like and he had missed those dire few seconds.  
He had failed, had left Newt to wake in a strange place to strange faces and doctors; to the fear they all still felt from knowing the vile ways of WCKD.

And there was nothing left of the moment to see, the shock and state Newt had been in when he’d awoken had been nearly dangerous; Alison tried to help him understand the necessity of sedatives and the restraints that held Newt’s hands to the bed for his own safety but all Thomas saw was a mirror of some horrible past and all he felt was a spike of his own fear. Doubt in the intentions, a wave of panic that stirred up every voice inside him in a demand to get out of that place, to get them all out, to run.

There was no running, there was no surviving for Newt any other way than what was in front of him.

“How long?” Gritted teeth barely allowed the words past and Thomas’ eyes would not shift to the woman as she stood at his side, knowing she was not the threat but the old feeling was hard to shake.

He was lucky in that much, in Alison’s understanding that the places they had been and the things they had suffered had taken away all trust beyond the strongest bonds; she offered him comfort while his mind reeled.

“A few days, we’ll bring him around slowly, a little at a time when his friends are around to see who he remembers and what; it won’t be as jarring that way. It’s what we should have done first, but we just weren’t sure he would wake up unless he did it on his own.” Her tone was hardly the sterile, flat demeanor so many scientists had used, so many people in white rooms with test tubes, it was pained for his sake.

Thomas nodded, fingers still gripped tightly to the glass enough to cause his fingers to pale. “Everybody will want to talk to him, but I need to first. I need to know what he remembers, and if he still wants to.”  
There were so many things he needed to know, and knowing he was going to get the answers had stirred up apprehension; bringing Newt back had felt easy up until the moment it became so real.

“You were the one who had to stop him, weren’t you?” Her question wasn’t an accusation though, already one she could answer for herself. “You saved him by doing that, you may not have meant to at the time but if he hadn’t been injured and had to recover enough to continue he likely would have been killed in the fire when the madness took over fully.”

“I killed him because I thought I didn’t have a choice. I don’t know if he’s going to forgive me for that, or for this.”

Thomas’ jaw was set, eyes betraying the twisting sensations deeper inside; she said nothing else though, only stood quietly while he sank into his own thoughts. It wasn’t an answer neither of them had, not yet.

 

_"Makes you wonder if they built it to keep people inside safe, or everybody else out."_

_"What?" Thomas hadn't been paying attention enough to understand the words; not since they had arrived close enough to see the towering walls of what was supposed to be the last city. Just the thought was enormous; that so much of what remained of humanity was surrounded by walls that reached skyward and it pulled up a fog of memories of walls they had left behind them._

_The sight had separated their little group somewhat, Thomas lagging behind slower than the rest to take it all in and Newt shadowing his steps, the usual pace for the both of them._

_"Reminds you of the Maze too, eh?" Newt mentioned as his gazed trailed the same lines as Thomas' along the top of the structure that, somehow, they had to sneak inside to find Minho in that self-contained world of stone and steel. "Thought that myself when I saw it; leaves you feel'in sick over it, doesn't it?"_

_Sick was exactly how Thomas felt; sick of how far they had come and what they had lost, how much behind them and all for the sake of trying to survive what was ahead. Sick of losing friends and not trusting his own memories, or himself._

_"Not far left to go now."_

_Newt was right; there couldn't be much further left to trek; it felt like an ending spread out before them. What that ending was, Thomas couldn't guess yet but they were so very close to it._  
_It had to be worth it._

_"Almost home," Newt added, even though none of them knew where home would end up being or if it was more than a notion of something that could only be real when they shut their eyes. It had to be more, had to mean something._

_Thomas nodded, dredging up his own convictions because he needed them just a little bit longer, turning to Newt for a brief second and finding him staring not at the wall but the sky beyond it._  
_Was he looking for that place that existed for them all, far beyond the next set of walls, that next maze in front of them?_  
  


_Something wasn't right. Something that glimmered with sadness lurked at the edges of Newt's gaze and Thomas wasn't sure why it was there but knew him well enough after all that time to see the subtle clouds in those eyes._

_"Newt?" He ventured carefully, stirring the other male from his thoughts and earning a lopsided smile for the effort._

_"Sorry Tommy, easy to get lost in your head sometimes, yeah?" The words apologetic as the Newt drew in the air around them slow and deep with a repeat of his previous words, "Almost home."_

_Rarely was there a moment stolen to themselves, Thomas had stopped counting on possibilities in that, but something was tangled in Newt's thoughts so he lingered while the others grew several more steps away, trailed behind them and cast a questioning look back to him._

_Newt only kept that smile in place and caught up to him, the expression hinting at something more teasing for an instant before his breath was stolen away with a brush of fingers at his bare wrist._  
_It was funny how life felt so dire that any touch, any moment of contact with another person was enough to put the ground back firmly under his feet. A simple of brush and Thomas felt that twisting flutter of steadiness and things difficult to put words to spike up in his veins._

_The kiss felt_ easy, _since the first one not too many days past there was a strange sort of normality to that as well; another little notch settled into place. He still smiled, it was hard not to when Newt chuckled and shot him a look that demanded silence to keep that moment between the two of them._  
_Not for the sake of the others, it wasn't about_ not _getting caught, no, it was just wanting something to themselves. There was nothing to catch, getting caught meant people questioning and nobody had. More questions had come from Thomas' confusing affection for Teresa than what had been growing between Newt and himself; the latter had barely gained a glance in passing from the people they had come to call friends._

But just having a moment to claim for the two of them made something feel more settled under his skin, something comforting in it, and Thomas needed that to lift some of the weight upon his shoulders. 

It already felt more and more like home.

 

The memory was one he fell back to time and time again, more so the past few months when his thoughts had begun to turn towards finding Newt; with it had sparked the realization as to why he had never been able to fully settle at the Safe Haven. While everyone else had begun to build new lives Thomas couldn't find a spot for his own because something had been absent.   
Maybe he was a fool to think it would be as simple as Newt waking up and everything being okay but what fight could there be ahead that couldn't be won? 

“Just follow me this one last time,” Thomas reasoned in a soft voice, a shadow settled into the chair next to that bed again. It had become the only place he would rest, outright refusal to step away kept him there, had all day. Alison came and went, slipping in and out like a ghost, Issac a bit less silent in his efforts but all only background noise.

The sedatives weren’t meant to wear off for another day, perhaps two, but Thomas was taking no chances.

“Follow me out of here and I swear Newt, it doesn’t matter what you think of me or anything else, just let me get you away from here, somewhere safe and good.” For all the times Newt had never faltered in his faith, for the moments when his warmth was all that had kept Thomas from losing himself to doubt; he owed Newt that in return.

“If you don’t wake up soon I’ll make Gally sit here and talk to you until you do just to get away from his complaining about how you bit him,” Thomas added with a shake of his head over his own dry humor. “We’re never going to hear the end of that anyway; you’re lucky you missed the last few weeks of it.”

Over the past day he had tried every bribe he could think of, every friendly threat, and a few offers that would have done wonders to motivate Newt nothing short of still being in that comatose state.  
He was running out of ideas by the time the sun was sinking away into evening and Minho had shown up to push food at him, knowing he was far too stubborn to step away.

  
When Newt’s hand twitched Thomas was in the middle of a bite of the sandwich that had no real taste on his tired tongue and he thought it was just his sore eyes longing to see things that were not there. When it happened again the food was tossed aside, forgotten the instant a sharper breath rattled over Newt’s chest and escaped in a sound that was almost recognizable as a wordless murmur.  
Pain, it sounded pained, and reflexively Thomas’ hand was at Newt’s shoulder, startled when it jerked under his touch in a violent shudder.

“Newt?” He was afraid to speak the word, to coax Newt back into awareness, if it were possible, given how tense the air had grown. The air in his lungs turned to ice, choked on expectation as that rattled sound echoed in the small room once more and sluggish, heavy and barely lifted, those eyelids that had been shut for weeks inched open.

Not enough to see the familiar color to those orbs, just a slit that the light fell upon, a sign of life. Then a blink, a tip of motion that tossed Newt’s chin up and his head to the side, fingers flexing and grasping into the tangled sheets, around the restraints with the low pitch of the sound he made.  
It reminded Thomas of stones scraped together, a dull rasp, dry and thick without words to decipher.

He had expected panic, surprise, some rough emotion flared in Newt’s eyes once they were fully open but there was only a dull, oily reflection was waiting. With a drugged disinterest he stared at the wall until Thomas sank back into the chair and the sound caused his gaze to slide towards him instead; hollow and hazy.  
Thomas searched desperately for a spark of recognition but saw nothing, no sense or awareness, a terrifying empty stare that ate right through him.

“Don’t do this to me Newt, you can’t be the one to do this.” Thomas’ voice hitched before he regained control over it, knowing the plea may have fallen on deaf ears. “Don’t be the one I _can’t_ save.”

Newt couldn’t be the one who slipped away after that fight, after those impossible odds, couldn’t be the one that Thomas had to say goodbye to twice; he couldn’t shoulder that agony.

But only silence lingered in the room, stretching Thomas’ hope thin between each breath.


	10. Chapter 10

“If you don’t sleep at some point you’re going to end up in one of these beds yourself from exhaustion.”

The comment was offered with soft humor that trailed off as the doctor stepped into Newt’s room, seeing only the shadow of a form near the doorway and pausing when he realized he had been mistaken in thinking it was Thomas at his usual watchful lurking. The shadow was too tall, too broad at the shoulders, the presence too tense to match the young man he expected to see there.

Taken off guard somewhat, Issac chuckled as he set the file he’d brought with him on the counter near the bed. “I’m not used to seeing someone else in here, I thought you were Thomas, but it saves me the effort of tracking you down to have a look at that hand.”

At the mention of the injury in question, Gally stiffened more, if that were possible, and his fist twitched. Far from troubled by what many would consider his intimidating presence, Issac stepped forward to usher him back to the side of the room where he had better light to inspect the hand once he’d made quick work of removing the bandages.

“I’m sure you’re glad to hear you don’t have any mutation of the Flare that you’re not already immune to, that we know of yet,” idle conversation while he searched for signs of more mundane infection along the neatly stitched lines along the man’s skin, "It’s about time for those stitches to come out though and you should be as good as new, random mutations aside.”

“Mutations? And do we have to do this here?” Gally mumbled, an eye cast towards that still unconscious figure in the bed as if he were waiting for Newt to suddenly come to awareness and question his even being there. “I don’t like being in here when he looks like that.”

Issac didn’t bother to ask what it meant exactly, people dealt with the idea of sickness in different ways, and in how they coped with those they knew being ill. He nodded in agreement, sparing a moment to retrieve what he needed from a nearby cabinet.

“Alright, we can find an empty room if you’d rather do that, but the sooner we get those stitches out the sooner you can brag about new scars; the mutation part was just a joke, hopefully. We really don’t know entirely what we’re dealing with though, right?”

The humor almost tipped the seemingly constant scowl that hung at Gally’s brow into a smile, almost, but it still felt like enough of a victory. “Oh, so it is possible. I was under the impression soldiers had a default expression and that was it.”

“You think I’m a soldier?” Gally replied with far more serious air to the words than Issac thought needed, but he only shook his head with that bemusement still firmly in place.

“I wouldn’t have picked you out as anything else, the gun, the general intense presence; figured that went with it. I’m assuming most of your friends see it that way too.” He had known a few soldiers himself, knew they often were the types set to their goals and a bit unwavering, but there was something to be said about a person who stuck to convictions. “It’s nothing bad, I think most people don’t understand the mindset.”

“And you do?” There was nothing but doubt in the question as he followed the doctor out of one room and into another nearly identical the next doorway down the hall. It wasn’t the most comfortable idea, dealing with new people, it had taken Gally time just to feel settled with the ones he’d known since the Glade and there was nothing swift about his adjustment to strangers.

Issac didn’t spare much needless motion, bandage undone and thin scissors in hand while he spoke, the quick snip of stitches and tug of them free with tweezers held in the other. “Not at all, I’ve never been the soldier type, just known a few enough to know it’s a different world when you’re always reaching for a gun when the chaos starts.”

Painless, the stitching was removed with ease and Gally sat there for a moment in the chair Issac had directed him to, eyes on the thin, newly pink lines that had healed along his hand. When he flexed it the stiffness was an annoyance, but the muscles slid under his skin without too much of a hitch in the motion.

“You’ll be fine, human teeth aren’t too sharp so it’s hard to damage too much muscle, it’s infection overall you have to worry about but you’re practically as good as new. One more scar to add to the list, hm?” The doctor stepped to throw away the used bandages after a swipe to remove any of the lingering blood that welled in a few small spots, his work was precise at the least.

 

“What did you do if you weren’t a soldier? Hide in a lab the whole time?” The words could be taken as unkind, and they certainly were blunt, but something about it just seemed to be the way of the younger man and Issac didn’t look to be too slighted by the could-be edge of mocking they held.

“As much as I could, sure; I never had much luck in a fight because I never liked the idea of hurting people. Even people who weren’t what we knew to still be people back then.” It was too hard to look at the twisted, angry faces of those infected and not hold his breath, hopeful each time that he wouldn't find himself staring at someone he knew. “It was a nightmare knowing any time I ran into someone infected they could be wearing a face I used to know.”

More than that, it was personal, it was personal for most everyone who had lived out those days.

“I read a lot, studied, tried to learn whatever I could around the hospital in case I had to help patch somebody up. But most of it was research on the virus, that was what I was good at; more of a nerd than a proper doctor.”

He chuckled at his own joke but Gally looked uncertain of it, trying to puzzle out the words in his head and Issac found himself trying not to smile. “I keep forgetting most of you had your memories wiped out; you probably don’t have a clue what some of the things I say are.”

Taking it as a shot at his intellect, Gally stiffened and the doctor lifted his hands in a show of harmless intention.

“I just mean, you don’t have a reference for things, that’s all. What you probably think of me; hanging out with books and studying all the time, my interest in science, weird comments about things like old movies or books, not exactly the most alarmingly great social skills thanks to my natural awkward streak; a lot of those things were markers for a certain type of person.

Or used to be; I guess most of the old social labels died out since a big chunk of the population doesn’t remember them. I mean, I’m not a lot older than any of you but I still remember what the world used to be but you can’t so I might as well be a different generation.”

In part it made sense, Gally had always just carried on with little thought to some things and social standing, roles and the like, had been one of them. He knew roles in the sense of what needed to be done; his role anymore was to keep things in line and to survive while he tried to keep the foolhardy people he knew from making mistakes.   
Mistakes cut too deep, that was a lesson he had learned at the cost of a life he couldn’t ever bring back and spent so much time trying to atone for in his own rough ways.

“So you’re saying that you’re more comfortable being labeled as something.” Gally approached the idea from how it was presented and it was a moment of clarity for the doctor; he didn’t need to be trying to convince the other man that labels were important because at times they had been used so harmfully in the past.   
It was suddenly surprising to realize that the possibility of the world where people didn't make assumptions by social expectations wasn’t...such a bad thing.

Looking at Issac, even though right that moment the doctor appeared to be rather confused, wasn’t like looking at someone different than all of them, but his experiences were so different it really was closer to seeing someone from another world Gally couldn’t fully make sense of.

“It’s not like I don’t like to read or whatever,” Gally offered to the dead air between them, still feeling the vague sting at his intellect, defensive was a habit, “Just not a lot of time to do that when you were trying not to get killed.”

“True,” Issac had to give him that much; survival became an all-consuming task for those who had to fight through it. “I think I like your way better anyway, I’m so used to putting people into pre-conditioned social boxes that I’m pretty sure I’m the one wrong this time trying to keep that outdated idea. There’s probably a few more I’ve picked up along the way back home. ” He was lucky in having some degree of a safe haven himself, but right then it felt like more of a wall between himself and Thomas’ group than helpful.

Finding some common group between himself and the rough-edged, tense figure that looked as ready to bolt as he was just as stubbornly determined not to was a challenge, but that was the way of the world since it had changed.

“How about now?”

The perplexed lift of brow at the question made it clear that, again, Issac had managed to stumble past the context he was speaking in.

“Books. I have books with me. You carry your gun, I find my books to be just as much a shield from the world. Come on, I’ll let you borrow some of them; might give you something to do while you’re all stuck here waiting it out?”

Listening to the words turned Gally’s lips to a thin line of contemplation; he hadn’t expected the other man to take the comment with any sort of seriousness because who would have? People didn’t look at him and think much of his interests past that deadset need to maintain some control over things around him. He could count on perhaps one hand the number of times he hadn’t been shrugged off as the guy who kept mostly to himself and showed up when trouble started.   
And even those few times had come from people who had known him from the Glade, as time had worn down the tension between himself and Thomas and Minho, even Frypan was more willing to give him a chance after the years had passed.   
He was always going to be Gally though, determined to a fault and one hell of a force when need be, still shut off from most people by his own refusal to take offers of friendship easily.

Every person he dared get too close to was another one the world could rip away or one he might put in danger himself; the years of relative peace hadn’t tamed those old fears he kept buried.

“I didn’t know asking you if you wanted to borrow a book was going to break your brain,” Issac interjected with a hesitant attempt to smile, wisely keeping himself out of the other man’s space while those thoughts had rolled dark across his eyes.

“Maybe later,” the tense-shouldered response left the doctor standing there watching while Gally slipped past him and out the doorway, knowing he had little idea what might be going on behind the words.

“Yeah, sure, it’s not like I’m hard to find around here.” Issac trailed off with words he was sure went mostly unheard, and all the more convinced that the whole lot of Thomas’ bunch were still very much fighting those heavy battles with the ghosts that wouldn’t leave them be.

 

  
The nudge aside was forgotten shortly after though, putting it off as some people taking more time to warm up than others, Issac lingered around the room for the sake of speaking with Thomas when he did show up shortly after.   
He expected as much; the past few days had been a revolving door of activity and people ducking in to see if Newt was on the mend enough to engage them. So far that hadn’t been the case; he woke at random points, silent and that disconnected look still upon his features. Each time it happened the doctor could practically see the heaviness in the air; none of them dealt with it well but, not surprisingly, Thomas always took it the worst.

“Has he been awake yet?” The taller man slipped past Issac to make a quick check himself to see if Newt’s eyes were open but was disappointed to see they remained closed.

Issac shook his head as an answer, remaining the room for a moment to watch the pacing, searching for words to make it easier. “It takes time for people with trauma to recover back to the point of interacting with the world; he’s probably just going to snap out of it at some point and it’ll either all come back like a flood or it’ll be exhaustingly slow; you can never tell.”

It was still something, and Thomas hoped the encouragement wasn’t only hollow words to save him the grief of a more grim truth; they had no idea what the Flare might have done after being buried in Newt’s mind for years. They all knew it caused seemingly sane people to become rabid animals, but what did it leave behind once the disease had been pushed into submission?   
Did it only repress a person’s nature or did it eat it all away?

Was the cruelest trick of that infection one they hadn’t even expected; would it still take Newt away from them in the end?

Thomas couldn’t stomach the questions buzzing inside his skull and the way they made everything ache, drove him into the chaos of things he had no answers for.

“Gally was in here earlier,” Issac offered, trying to coax Thomas from that dark place clouding his eyes, “That one is just textbook stubbornly guarded, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, good luck getting three words out of him; it takes a few years before he’ll talk much to you. The glaring is his version of hello.” Maybe it was a little unfair, the humor on Gally’s account, but it at least gave Thomas a moment to step out of that frame of mind that felt dismal. “He’s a good guy, just rough.”

“From meeting all of you I’ve gathered that’s a common survival skill.” Issac offered, leaving Thomas uncertain as to if the young doctor was joking with the words or not.

 

  
It was a surprise to all of them, Minho more than anyone, when the first person Newt seemed to recall from that foggy place where his mind roamed even those moments when his eyes lay open and unfocused was him. With a single word, a name that sounded drier and raspier than Newt’s voice ever had in the past; Minho had jumped, startled and everyone else in the room had been left blinking.   
By that point Alison had been encouraging the group to spend time in that room, hopeful that the presence of people he knew would be enough to pull the blonde from his empty-eyed state.

Nobody expected Minho to be the one who first untangled in his shattered thoughts. They all were waiting for the obvious, for Thomas’ presence to bring him back to the world and even Thomas himself couldn’t help feeling a flicker of confusion over it.   
The card game he had been playing at the table nearby with Brenda, Minho and Issac forgotten in an instant; shared looks of uncertainty passing between all of them before Issac gave Minho’s chair a nudge with his boot.

“Ah, yeah? I’m here, we’re all here in one piece.”  
To his credit, Minho’s voice was only barely shaky when he spoke, hopeful for an answer but afraid of saying something wrong.

There was no answer; Newt said nothing the rest of that day.

Alison explained, later, that it only made sense really once she knew the story behind Newt’s being left in the city; his mind was cycling through what it remembered and the last vivid goal had been their search for Minho. That reassurance took some of the doubt from Thomas, some of the worry that Newt didn’t want him there, didn’t want to remember him; but it all felt like shaky ground.  
And it stretched on so endlessly, or so it felt, when every day after only brought a word or two at most, a slow recovery that didn’t seem at all like Newt’s old ability to bounce back from the edge as he had so many times in the past.

 

  
“You remember us being there, right? Getting Minho out of that place? I’ll tell you what happened after.” Thomas was alone once again in the room, night wrapped around him while his friends slept and he spoke to the ghost of a memory occupying Newt’s silent form.   
He never really knew when Newt was asleep or awake, more responsive to the sounds around him but even that only seemed to come in short waves.

“We got out of there,” Thomas continued, “I wasn’t sure we were going to at a few points but you know we always had that luck that didn’t make much sense. Got out of there and found a new home, built it up and found the cure; it really wasn’t fair that we had it all along and didn’t even know it.”

Feeling eyes on him Thomas paused to glance up from staring at his hands in his lap while he sat in that chair that served as his bed more often than not; he had noticed Newt’s eyes were muddy at the edges since he’d begun to open them, not the tawny light he’d seen in the past so much as streaky with dark flaws in that once pristine color. He wasn’t sure what it meant, only hoped it would fade away with the other traces of the virus healing out of his system.   
Having those eyes on him then was uneasy; he was still waiting for the moment they filled with accusations.

“If we’d known none of this would have happened, it was all right there in my blood. When I think about all the people we lost over it, the people we almost lost; if I’d just known before, remembered that somehow.”

Thomas didn’t need Newt to accuse him of not doing enough; he damned himself with that plenty.

“I would have traded it, blood and whatever else they needed, to end it before the things we lost. And now I’m just trying to hope that there’s still a way to bring you back.”

Those swampy-brown eyes twitched in a slow blink and remained on him, watching his every movement, the tips of Newt’s fingers twitched, had been doing that since Alison had decided the sedation was enough to safely free his hands from the restraints; somewhere buried inside all of that Newt still existed.   
He had to still be there.

“You’re starting to remember them, I guess so long as you get yourself back you don’t need to remember me too; it’s good enough just having you back.”

Thomas knew that left him the one carrying those memories instead; the bad of days he was shaken to his core and Newt was exhausted, gritty sand digging wounds into skin and the heat of the day like a heavy weight dragging them all down. The good days too, rarer by far; smiles and laughter and the comforting feel of a body next to his own on sleepless nights, dusty blonde hair sneaking against his nose and making him sneeze himself awake. Tentative smiles that edged just past friendly, teasing comments and sudden swipes of motion that stole his fingers for Newt to wrap them up with his own short seconds when they both were losing that feeling of being grounded.   
He had already carried those memories and far more for years; maybe it was his place to carry them forever after the virus had burned them out of Newt’s mind.

Newt only faintly stirred, head rolled against the pillow behind it; hair that had grown longer at a far slower pace with the strain of the Flare still brushed over his eyes none the less from those extra inches and Thomas had to fight the urge to reach over and push the strands away from Newt’s eyes, to wary of the motion startling him.

“Still remember,” Newt murmured, obvious in how much effort the words took both to dredge up and to actually speak, voice still hoarse from so long without real use.   
But to Thomas, it was absolutely the best sound he’d head in years, enough to bring a cautious smile to his lips and he had to push, just a little, just another step even if he maybe shouldn’t have.

“Yeah?” The lump in his throat was nearly choking, Thomas felt himself floundering. “What do you remember?”

The focus in Newt’s eyes stayed crisp but no more words came and after a few long seconds Thomas had to bite back the disappointment that settled in his chest, had to tell himself it was still going to take time; Newt talking to him at all still meant something.

He wasn’t expecting the motion, froze the instant he saw Newt’s hand do more than twitch, saw it flex sluggishly, painfully by the look of how slowly those thin fingers stretched and lifted. Breath held somewhere in the pit of his stomach as he didn’t dare to shift at all, Thomas’ eyes stayed locked there while Newt’s hand moved exhausting inches, just enough for the tips of those fingers to brush against his own wrist.  
Instinctively, Thomas lifted his hand to the motion then regretted it, any small thing could have been overwhelming while Newt’s mind was still knitting things back together.

Satisfied with the gesture, it seemed, Newt’s fingers fell heavy and tired against his palm when Thomas settled his hand on the edge of the bed, only feeling the tiny sensation of contact and the old motion; taking the cue to finish what Newt couldn’t yet; tangling their fingers together in that space between them.

Thomas didn’t feel like he really needed to hear the answer just yet, he had enough for the moment to know he would have it eventually. 


End file.
